


Closer To You

by starrymeis (meiqis)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ....in space, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, Established Relationship, Illnesses, Jeno has wings, M/M, Mentions of blood and injuries, Multi, Wingfic, basically Dream are aliens??, descriptions of blood and injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21539545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meiqis/pseuds/starrymeis
Summary: Silently Renjun looked up, checked for Jeno’s reaction for a second before he went over and lied down next to Donghyuck, rather than being suffocated by his lover’s warmth. He followed the line of sight upwards, looked at the stars, but his hand reached for the boy’s to squeeze softly. “I think all of you can sing tales of the cruelty of others… But if you look up there, do you think each of these places is occupied only by mean people? Sometimes minds are cruel and nasty, sometimes coincidence makes it tough. It doesn’t mean we should live only to spite others, especially when they are far away. You have us now, you shouldn’t worry about those who are never going to care.”On the other side, he could see Jeno and Jaemin having already sat up, their warm eyes watching over them. There were still nightmares haunting him, too, but looking at these two, he thought shouldering them was worth it all regardless.(Renjun and the others are all stuck on a planet meant for quarantine. He manages to make it a kingdom of their own on his journey of finding family anew.)
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	Closer To You

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
> 
> Against my own expectations, I am back quickly with another work and I lowkey hate? Basically, this concept is something [Gems](achiveofourown.org/users/starrywons) and I came up with recently when she said she wanted a space au but somehow it went from _you should write xx ship with that!_ to _let's make another series!_ to _whoops, I wrote this in five days??_ o(〒﹏〒)o 
> 
> Mentioning five days, this probably makes this the fastest I've ever written this much? Usually a story of that size would take a good month for me but CTY basically wrote itself so I tried to make the most of it while I could and sat down even though I had schedules nearly everyday (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ
> 
> This actually marks the third series I planned with Gems but based on the rank alone, you should not hope for a continuation too soon when we still have two other projects to work on before. CTY is merely the interlude to it all. 
> 
> Having said that much, I wish you all a good read and there'll be trivia at the end (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ 
> 
> **triggers** \- there's implications of sex but nothing explicit nor graphic. there's also mentions of violence with complicated circumstances and descriptions of blood. to those of you who only get sensitive because of red blood, be assured, it's not red. 
> 
> **A/N** \- Dream concert visuals is what you need to keep in mind (っ˘ω˘ς )  
> title is from WJSN's same named song

The stones felt cold beneath his cold fingers. Had felt cold when he had arrived eight years prior, roaming these halls all on his own, an innocent and clueless child that had been dumped on this planet no better than a bag of trash thrown out on the streets, like the books they burned after deeming them to dangerous, keeping but one copy on the whole of their planet to keep the galaxies safe from knowledge that was too much. For that reason, some had called them wise, the Keepers of Knowledge, and some had cursed them out, selfish people monopolizing knowledge for them alone. Some had felt empathy when the disease spread among their planet, and some had laughed in glee. And now…

Now he was the lone survivor and close to going berserk.

They had called it the Viper, a pun, a play of words on papyrus and virus. A disease that had dried them out, had their skin turn paper thin and discolored, cells slowly dying until they fell apart like books not stored the proper way. One by one, the people had turned to dust, covering the books, shelves, homes, and those who were infected spread it around like wildfire. But a select few had been able to escape the planet, it had been put on a lockdown, shields up. Impenetrable barriers that would keep safe what could no longer be protected by them, keep the virus in, keep the dangers of wisdom locked away.

As it stood now, he was the only one left to access what had once been flourishing with life, an entrance code programmed into his genes. He had never questioned it, the decisions of the guards who collected their spaceship and landed it on this planet, because by the time it had been destroyed to make escape impossible, he had already known. Like candles blown out by the wind, one by one, a lonely birthday cake, the lights of the Keepers had flickered and vanished. All thanks to their joint commemorative. Gene sequences saved within a supercomputer to link their memories.

No one knew exactly when they had started using it, but they all knew the cause of it. They had known it. 

Not being able to forget any single thing they had ever seen, read, heard, smelled, tasted - it brought a certain kind of burden upon them. Sharing their memories had not only made it easier to learn but it had taken the burden off each of them, like a building supported by pillars, the more there were the more stable it stood. And then, one by one, they had diminished without ever breaking the link. Each and every light flickering had made him feel more lonely, had broken his spirit ever since he had been one thousand five hundred and thirty-nine days old. And each of them, with pillars cracking, breaking, had increased the weight of knowledge on his shoulders until he was certain his head would explode inside out with how full it felt.

Ironically, his knowledge had been what not only broke him but also saved him. Cast away on a desolate planet, all alone in an obsolete city, he had been faced with the need to take care of himself all on his own. The packed meals he found stacked in houses and rooms all across would only last him so long and it had cost him months over weeks to slowly figure how to extract the necessary parts from these so he could grow his own food; how to collect the rain and filter the water to make sure he’d have enough to sustain the plants and him alike; how to install a heating system in some of the houses so he wouldn’t freeze to death in the harsh winters that were certain to come upon him. He was all alone but he made do, the knowledge of countless within his mind, driving him mad as he scribbled word after word onto empty walls until houses told stories he might never. 

It hadn’t actually been hard to realize why there was not enough food left behind, why there was no running water system, why the heaters had no longer worked. On a planet long since extinct, the sick were sent to die far away from those meant to stay alive. And Renjun had still not managed to figure out how and why he had survived, but with a whole planet waiting on him, he was not about to just go down on his own. One day, someone would come. One day, someone would save him.

But it had one thing, to know these things. It had been another to tell them to someone else, slowly crush their hopes like spices in a morsel. Knowledge was cruel, truth could be dangerous, but contained in a safe place at least it would hurt no one. Knowledge spread and shared without care, it was the actual threat to the galaxies. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


He had been exactly five thousand days old when a bright spark flared up in the skies and then, like a stone surrounded by fire, it dropped down. A heavy weight that fell, bursting in flames and exploding in colors when it hit the ground and ignited the sand covering the outlands, minerals bursting and coloring the air. It had been as beautiful as it had been tragic but it had sparked desperate hope in Renjun’s veins, electrocuting him with miserable esperance, had made him lose his reason and rationality as he had started and running and kept going even through his legs failing him and his heart squeezing tight with the strain he was putting on it.

Distance was a funny thing, because sometimes it looked so small and sometimes it was so big, and Renjun had been thoughtless when he started on his way, had not estimated the way in advance. By the time he had arrived the place of color, it had been dawning already, a storm brewing above him, flashes lighting up the sky and the grounds in front of him.

Birds had never been something he had been allowed to see when he had still lived at home, they had not kept animals in the library. There had been countless drawings, though, of birds with leathery wings that helped them survive in rough and wet weather, those covered in feathers, some with wings too heavy to even lift off the ground, with limbs too tiny to carry their weight up into the air, birds with tails so long they risked getting stuck somewhere the moment they took off but with a yearning for freedom that outweighed the risk of ripping their feathers over and over again.

Without ever having seen a bird, he therefore was able to realize what was in front of him, beautifully shining black feathers looking like a whole galaxy with the colored particles dusted all over them, lightning reflecting their sparkles to turn it into stars. Without doubt, it must be the most beautiful thing Renjun had ever seen in his short life, and if only he could be in love with something, he was certain it would be those wings, the beauty enclosed within their shape and color at this very moment.

Birds, he recalled, were different in shape to humans like him, yet the thing that was revealed to him the moment he pushed the wing aside was not a bird as he knew from pages and drawings but a very humane figure, no different than his. A young boy, no older than him, with bruised and colored skin, like a reverse to his wings, the boy’s skin was a flawless white with bursts of red and blue and purple and yellow and green showing up. The galaxies on the wings had been born from outside factors, from the sand torn to dust, but these bruises came from the inside, from blood vessels bursting and releasing the precious fluid into the flesh, straining the skin. It was as beautiful as it was gruesome. 

So lost in admiring the torturous artwork he didn’t recognize the steady rise and fall of the kid’s chest as a sign of life for a whole while longer, instead felt the blood rush to his face when he noticed his mistake. The first drops of rain were falling around them.

“Shit!” He cursed, his tongue heavy in his mouth as he looked from the boy at his feet to the city far behind them. The storms out here were vicious, the air sparked with enough electricity for a single spark sufficing to start lighting anywhere, and it was hard enough to get back home in time on his own. It was an impossible task to do so while dragging dead weight with him. He hiccuped, realizing how stupid he had been. The Keepers prided themselves in knowledge but he had just rushed out like this and risked his life for a kid he wasn’t even sure would survive. No matter the amounts of medical knowledge contained within his brain and the link to his home planet, he was no surgeon, theory did not equal practice.

But as the rain drops kept increasing and mingled with the tears brimming his eyes, he sense a touch to his wrist, sending him tumbling down for all of a moment before he was enclosed by perfect darkness. He wanted to scream but found himself unable to when arms tightened around his waist, pulling his barely clothed body against an even more naked one and having lacked touch for nearly two thirds of his life, he found more comfort in this embrace than he had ever before in anything else.

  


When he came to again, the boy next to him had been well passed out, breath steady but not reacting to any of Renjun’s movements. Wriggling around, freeing himself not only from the embrace but also the covering of the heavy wing, he found himself all dry and warm surrounded by a desert that felt cold and wet. His chest felt heavy as he looked down at the stranger boy next to him. Angels, one race had called them. Winged humans living in the heavens with an omnipotent creature named God. Devils, they had been called, after being discarded like trash by their creator. Like the birds with too long tails, they had been reckless in their pursuit of happiness and freedom, doomed to never return home again.

This boy was the same. Discarded not by a creator but a powerful organization nonetheless, fallen from disgrace because of whatever sickness had infected them too. Wings not discolored and tainted by sin but torn and broken by the crash and burn. Renjun’s heart ached, and his limbs were soon to follow when he dragged the boy all the way back to the city he came from. A way that had once taken hours now took a day and some, and he was certain he had added some scuffs and cuts to that beautiful skin while dragging him around, wings a heavy weight in his arms that felt like falling off when he dropped the two of them into his bed at night. The world became black again, and this time these beautiful feathers could no longer be blamed.

  


The poor boy was still out of it when Renjun came to again, still unconscious when he had gobbled up the third serving of food, still senseless when the Keeper started to treat the small wounds one by one to prevent infection. At least whoever had installed this city had been kind enough to leave enough medical equipment behind to make this an easier job for the current reigner of the city. It didn’t mean, though, he was able to heal all the wounds there already were, and there were quite a bunch.

It was nighttime again, when he found himself tracing scars maring tender skin, barely visible where white met white but obvious to his touch. Some of them stood out, sesquipedalian lines that must have been born from deep injuries, cutting through muscle and tendons and blemishing what had once been flawless. Some were still ruddy, fresh and still healing, must have been sensitive to the touch had the boy not been insensible next to him. There were also smaller ones, barely notable but all the more, small wounds that might have been anything from a paper cut to a scraped knee, little wounds telling countless story.

For the first time in years, Renjun felt curiosity overwhelm him. For someone who prided himself in knowing more than a hundred people could learn in all of their lifetime, this boy contained all the stories he had never before heard. It was no dead knowledge, not words scribbled down onto paper, but alive memories, sentences wrapped into feelings and emotions no pen could ever imitate. It was itching him in his fingers, a nervous prickle running underneath his skin, all the things he could still learn, still get to know about, and all of that if only this innocent boy would finally wake up.

  


Contrary to his expectations, there were few of these stories he got to hear. Not about each scar on their own. Not about the boy’s past. Not about how his planet looked nor about what having a family was like. Not about friendship and other people, not about folklore nor myth. But there were countless other things Renjun learned about the boy. That his name was Jeno. That they were thirty-one days apart in age. That their tongues were different but Keepers had always been great at learning fast. That a second pair of hands were great in aiding him. That sleeping together and covered by wings was warmer than any blanket could ever be.

Not only that, the reigner of the town learnt all the things he could never read about in books. About how uncomfortable it was to feel his heart skip a bit but how wonderful it was to feel fingers wrapping around his hand, a thumb caressing his wrist, looking for a pulse as if that sign of life was reassuring to Jeno. About how ticklish he could be when fingers lightly traced the line of his spine whereas no matter how much and how often Jeno pinched his sides, he would not start laughing. About how beautiful it was to hear Jeno laughing when he did the same, though, how much just a second of hearing that sound was enough to brighten his days like the sun peeking through the clouds. About how easy it was to feel lonely when Jeno left him alone after he was used to the boy’s presence so well.

Within only four hundred and twelve days it became impossible to imagine his life as it had been before, a distant memory, a faraway image. Yet it was something he could never forget, was inscribed to his memory never to be erased, a place that was just the same within his memory and in front of his eyes, dreary and colorless, lacking life, some place between new city and ruin, a city remaining just on the edge of everything. So why was it that it seemed to be all the more alive as he looked at it than in memories that portrayed just the same. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


Still, there had not only been good days. A good handful of days still haunted Renjun at night, always the same scene and always in a different setting. There had been nights of thunder and rain; days of freezing and biting cold as the outside was covered in white; evenings painted the most wonderful bursts of color; and summer dawns revealing the neighboring moon. In theory, just looking at the scenery, each of them had been beautiful. In reality, they weren’t.

The first time it had happened might have just been the most cruel of them all, blood dripping off his fingers, foreign black mixing with his liquid silver, a beautiful swirl of light and dark that burnt through his veins like poison injected by the sticky darkness invading his every little wound. Little cuts across his fingers and palms and wrists that had made it impossible to move his hands for days and albeit those wounds had been many but small, albeit it had been Jeno’s back to be covered in fluid night, the winged boy had been the one to hug the Keeper in bed up to the point of passing out from shock.

Two hundred and forty-one days after Jeno’s arrival, during a beautifully starry night, had he first wrapped his fingers around the base of those mesmerizing wings. Before, he had always known the feathers as silky soft, the most luxurious of materials crafted into those delicate little things, smooth to the touch and in Renjun’s eyes the most worthy of all goods to exist. For one last time had he traced his fingers along the bones running along the seam, felt the strength contained, the pulsing of muscles, the warmth of blood and flesh, the edge of a fracture that could no longer be healed. 

“Jeno…” His voice had broken with a single word, with the name that had become the most often spoken syllables for him, and a sob had broken through his body. He hadn’t wanted to do it, did not want to have to wrap his fingers around the sensitive base again but the look he had received in return had been more serious than any other before. The weight of a lifetime carried within two infinite orbs, swirling darkness, a black hole to be sucked into. Hypnotizing, swallowing him up, before he had realized he had grabbed the base more firmly, had ignored the feathers cutting into his skin until his own flesh had been torn. 

The scream he had heard that night was something he forever wanted to erase from his memory, more pained than anything ever before as he placed his foot between Jeno’s shoulder blades and used all his force to push. They had flapped one last time, in a moment Renjun could not comprehend no matter how many times his mind decided to torture him with the memory, a short second and yet so long.

  


A crack, a tear, a strong gush of wind. He had found himself at the other end of the room, with feathers still held between his hand, with black trickling into his silver, dripping, running, and in front of him Jeno with black slowly painting the expanse of his slender back. Dripping. Running. The boy was shaking, silently crying after one single scream at the moment of rupture, hands so tense Renjun feared the veins along his arms might burst, defying all the logic he had been born with.

Trapped in a state of shock, unable to ever turn off the permanent recording and saving of his brain, he could still remember having spent hours cleaning the amounts of black blood, smearing it with his silver until his hands and arms and clothes were a mess but Jeno’s back was white again. Trying to stop the blood flow, he had needed to freeze the wounds, had watched the little crystals forming along the two lines, and used more wrapping than he should have on a single occasion. With his hands still looking like a starry night watched through teary eyes, he had fixed the bandages, and once he was done, Jeno had pulled him to the front and into an embrace. 

Renjun only remembered crying, nearly choking on air, and then more crying, until everything became black. When he woke up the next morning from the sun tickling his face, he found himself in their bedroom. There were no longer wings lying around, and even months later he had not found a single trace of them. His hands had been wrapped in bandages and Jeno, sitting with his back to the wall but resting into countless cushions, had handed him a cup of tea. His hands had been incredibly soft as he used them to cup the Keeper’s face, rubbing at swollen eyes, and then Renjun had his first kiss stolen by the boy who had experienced the worst of pains by his bandaged hands.

The following night, and the one after, and still too many more, the images remained fresh in his mind. The cracking. The tearing. The last rustling of feathers. The scream. He would shoot up from sleep in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat even when the water outside was freezing against the windows, and with tears burning hot in his eyes. It had taken weeks for his tears to dry up and equally as long for the slashes in Jeno’s skin to thaw and form scabs, for the flesh to close until only two prominent white lines were left, jutting out from the skin.

Never before had he hallucinated, but as he woke up one night, with Jeno on his stomach and arm thrown across the older’s lap, Renjun was certain this was the day. Faint lines had formed around the scars, and fear of a sepsis had overcome him for a second before he reasoned that it was too late to still get one. He had traced them, felt the warmth emanating from them, the soft little pulse, but there was no longer time to examine them when Jeno had pulled him done and against his chest. Unwillingly, he had succumbed to sleep but promised himself to keep an eye on it anyways.

It was so easy to keep a pledge when one couldn’t forget about it. Every night, still, when he woke up from his nightmare, he glanced yet again at the wounds he had left. Every morning and night, when Jeno changed his clothes, he watched how they spread, evolved. Sometimes he just hugged the younger, pressed his fingers beneath his shoulder blades and felt the soft pulse. At the halfway point of it, he came to see what it actually was, as the black swirled around, an alive matter, and started to form shapes. Luxurious swipes of a paint brush never used, dipped in ink as black as Jeno’s blood, and slowly wings were painted across his back. The day they stopped growing, Renjun broke into a sob as he clung to the winged man for hours, bawling his eyes out until tears were no longer left. At night, he spent hours tracing the lines, each and every one, until Jeno was a shivering and trembling mess beneath him. They did nothing but share an innocent kiss, the sensation lingering on his lips even as he fell into dreams.

He regretted ever having point it out one moon later, when Jeno was sat in their bedroom, back to the door and beautiful black reflecting the moonlight in their wake. As if the Keeper had used his blood to paint across the feathers, they shone in soft silver. The longer he looked, the more tragic it became. The right wing stood proud, a beautiful arch, feathers ethereal and deadly. Flawless. But the left wing… If his heart could make a sound while breaking, Renjun would swear it was the noise Jeno’s wing had made as he tried to move it. Broken in the same way as before, useless, no better than a twig pulled over the knee, it hung down.

That night, they slept covered by impenetrable black, darker even than Jeno’s eyes. Renjun was not surprised when the words he had been greeted with had been, “You need to take them off…”

They lasted merely one day, then he found himself with swirls of black and silver covering his arms again, with fire burning in his veins, light fighting dark underneath his skin, while he froze the wounds, bandaged the wounds, and sobbed into Jeno’s chest all over again. He woke up in their bed, his hands damaged, and greeted by a tender kiss. 

When Jeno’s blood started drawing shapes into his skin again, wings forming along his back, Renjun paid more attention this time around. He traced every new line as it appeared when he was woken by memories at night, followed their flow until he found the fault. A single scar, to faint to be seen by the eyes no matter how well he had thought to know the other’s body by now. It was breaking off the artificial feathers, disrupted the perfect image, and as his brain built a momentum of his own, a search of all his knowledge on removing scar tissues, all he could see was the slowly rising sun painting Jeno’s frame a beautiful gold.

He passed more time, waited until the drawings had been completed, spent every night tracing the lines. By the time it had finished growing, when there was no longer skin stressing over bones but layers of muscles in between. Without noticing despite always staying close, Renjun realized Jeno was slowly approaching adulthood, carrying the body of the warrior he was likely meant to be with wings as deadly as his. A striking contrast to his own body, a scholar through and through, still skinny and slim, their difference in height slowly becoming obvious.

The night he had experienced six thousand and one hundred eighty-two mornings, he realized that Jeno, despite all his growing muscle and increasing strength, would never use any of it against him. After spending what must have been hours tracing the faint lines of black, until the younger was once again a trembling and shivering mess beneath his digits like the first time the markings had stopped growing, he learned what it meant to be loved in a physical way. It was their first time, it was clumsy, but it was never hesitant, never painful. Instead, the winged spent a long, long time on using his strength in the most beautiful ways; spent it praising Renjun’s body from the tip of his head to the bottom of his feet; spent it murmuring praises and prayers into his flesh; spent it exploring until he had found all the single sensitive spots; spent it driving Renjun crazy, sending him to see a galaxy of stars again and again; spent it making love to the older until the sun greeted their sweaty bodies and they had to rest when usually they got up.

When the Keeper looked down his body the next time, he found it covered in little colorful swirls, a mirror image of Jeno’s young body of the night he arrived. But this time, the marks were not born from hate or anger or hurt, this time they had been born from love, and Renjun had never before felt like belonging so much. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


Albeit there was no doubt what Renjun was feeling for Jeno was love, there was an inevitable time of doubting the origin of his feelings. Staying alone for several years now with one person on a secluded planet, would it not be normal to feel attached to them? Surely, either of them could have turned on the other, could have used the safety of the night to stab the other’s back and take control of the space that had already been turned into a place of lower maintenance by Renjun spending more than his life there. Carelessly, he had decided to take care of another person that could risk the very existence of his own planet, risk the existence of a race that was already doomed to vanish the moment his light flickered and vanished. It had been a fortunate coincidence to turn out the way it had, but for someone with half the knowledge of the ever expanding universe stuffed into his little brain, it was hard to just turn of his thoughts.

It was not impossible, it was so easy to forget about all but Jeno when the younger’s lips traced his body, when another body moved against his in the way he had taught, when their breaths mingled between their lips and he was no longer sure whether he was breathing air or just Jeno’s essence. It was even easier to give in to his thoughts at nights he was afraid of what might await him when he closed his lids and let the memories take over. Questions tumbling around his mind, of whether what they did was right, of whether it wasn’t love forced upon them by circumstance. The weight of Jeno’s arm around his waist feeling like a cage, not yet sure whether it was meant to protect him or keep him locked in. Four years and the younger had done so well taking over his life, it was scary. 

Questions that had previously haunted him, wonder about whether and when the Viper would bite him too, about whether or not he could survive on his own, how many days he would have left, had soon turned into something more, something scarier. So easily drowning in his own thoughts all over again, he was close to believing the burst of light in the skies was nothing more than shooting star until it was not. A loud crashing sound, so very different to the lack of noise when Jeno had been dropped off, protected by nothing but his own wings, there was an indication of more that was only emphasized by the way it tore apart houses at the outskirts of the town.

The noise was enough to rouse even the winged one from sleep, looking bleary and adorable in an unfair attack to Renjun’s heart. “Stay,” he whispered, despite the frown already working its way between Jeno’s eyebrows. The younger had always taken longer to wake up, and the Keeper knew his way around the city better anyways, knew all the hiding spots, all the shortest ways to come back home and seek refuge within those strong arms. He also knew that, in certainty of danger, Jeno would pull out his wings again, and he was not ready to shoulder the guilt of that again just yet, not when the scar was still evident, still disrupting the tattoo and still breaking his left wing before it was fully grown.

Gently, he pressed a kiss to Jeno’s lips and moved out of bed, spending little time to dress himself when the heat season had left the outside air crisp at night. Bursts of color thanks to a little fire facilitated Renjun finding the right place, dust rising like a smoke signal as he weaved through the houses to get from the city center to the suburbs, until he found the few buildings that had been crushed by the meteor like arrival. It took a while to find the source of it all, the clean cut escape capsule that looked little like the technology he was already familiar with.

For a moment, the realization hit him that in a universe as widespread as theirs, there might be a lot more to learn that he had priorly realized, a lot more to miss out on during a few years only than he had considered. It were thoughts he had to brush away when he heard movement from within the capsule, looking like some of the pain medication, a white ellipsis rustling around and whoever stuck inside was moving. When it broke apart, opening in two before retracting into a small box, a boy was revealed, and Renjun jumped back. Contrary to the earlier rustling, though, the kid just laid there, breathing heavy and looking uncomfortable, too weak to do more than just gasp for air.

Renjun remained in place. Watched. Stepped back a bit more and kicked at a stone to get the attention of the stranger. Observed. And once he was certain the kid lacked the energy to go after him, only then did he dare step closer and wrap his arms around the new arrival to take him back to one of the houses they could actually live in. Not Jeno’s and his, because the risk remained, of someone unknown to them trying to get rid of them and take control, but still a place that ensured he would not turn into a murderer by leaving someone out in the weather.

The child, not much younger than them but innocence still on his features, easily fell into sleep when Renjun put him to bed, cuddling into the blanket when covered, and the Keeper still hung some bells to the door in case the kid woke up before them. Once it was closed well, keeping the heat out, he returned to their house down the street, shed his clothes the moment he returned to the bedroom and allowed himself to take in the beauty of Jeno in their bed for the moment. Again and again, he was mesmerized by his partner, the pale skin blooming beautifully with the marks he had left, the faint lines of artful muscles, the perfect mixture of tender and sturdy. Strength contained within an ethereal body, currently looking relaxed as Jeno had sat up in bed to stay awake and wait for him.

“Like what you see?” The younger teased, tried to, it was impossible to turn into a flirt while gentle eyes were curving in good humor. Renjun just snorted but moved into bed nonetheless, cuddling up to the wingless until he was partially resting on top of his lover and partially curled into his side. A steady heartbeat beneath his ear. He merely slapped the waist tickled by black ink in retaliation. “What did you find out there?”

“Someone,” the Keeper started, recalled the features he had seen and tried to match them with what he knew of other races. “A kid. He didn’t look healthy but I can’t tell about their recovery just yet. We’ll need to await the next day and then try figure out what to do with him.” He was thoughtful, tapping his fingers against Jeno’s side until the younger was squirming and Renjun had to stop, lest his pillow would make it a challenge to get a chance at rest.

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it? Getting a new addition to our little family,” Jeno muttered, smile gentle but eyes already bleary, exhaustion quick to catch up to them. Renjun didn’t mention how the suggestion - that they were, could be, family - made his heart skip a bit or had his cheeks color, but he moved closer to the other in an attempt to steal some body heat despite the relentless heat outside. Whatever their thoughts, they would need to pass the next day anyways. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


All in all, it took three days for the new kid to get back on his legs, each of them filled with sleeping off the fatigue and feeding off little meals they got him, mostly easily eaten things like soup or stew. The given time was sufficient for the kid to gain back his complexion and more than just the color to his skin. What race exactly the new arrival belonged to, Renjun had figured in the morning, and promptly searched his mental archives to find everything about them he could, just as he plopped onto the ground next to Jeno. The sun was shining beautifully, never as aggressive as it could be on other planets, meaning they hardly tanned nor got burnt but still bright enough that it was a bit irritating on the eyes.

“Doppelgänger.” He leaned into Jeno, buried his face in the younger’s neck to inhale this scent of freshness that never quite seemed to fade. Already a while ago, he had come to the conclusion that it must have to do with Jeno being airborne, albeit there apparently were still a lot of secrets to the winged kind not even their heir was aware of. It had been during the second time of inking that Renjun asked about it, but as it turned out, it was a mystery not only to him.

“No one walks without wings where I come from,” the wingless had said that day, and the Keeper had never again asked about it.

Now, the younger only released a questioning sound, prompted Renjun to go on, “The kid is a Doppelgänger. But they’re supposed to be quite resilient to a whole lot of diseases, I don’t get why he would’ve been put here.” Neither was the race entirely unknown, rather, they were known for their exotic beauty. An eternal shine was covering their skin, making them look like doused in glitter when the light shone upon them, and as fascinating as it looked, to the ruler the white skin of his lover was still more appealing. No, what really made the Doppelgänger interesting was their ability to shift their appearance, to turn into a carbon copy of whoever they wanted to be. In the end, the only possibility to tell their real appearance apart from adapted ones was nothing but the shimmering surface.

“What do we do with him now?” Jeno asked, arms wrapping around Renjun’s middle so he could maneuver the smaller to sit in between his legs, back against chest, as they looked out over the city spreading out in front of them. It was none of the rising kinds, not like the home of the Keepers that was like an everlasting library, books accompanying them on the streets, in public buildings, public rooms, about anywhere but bathrooms or bedrooms or kitchens. Because feeding their logic was as important as feeding their stomachs. 

“We wait,” Renjun answered and closed his eyes. “He should wake up soon, and then we ask him about his intentions. And if he is against us, we have no other choices…” 

In contrast to the home he had once known, with its clean white and colorful covers, with only their colored clothes telling them apart from inanimate objects - and books, in their own way, were animated - the city was both dreary and not. The buildings were not high, aiming for the skies, they were flat, three stories were high, and expanded into all directions. Because this planet had never known overpopulation, the space had been more than sufficient, and against the washed out stone, and dirty glass, the broken sand was a nice contrast. The heat was battling the desert, caused fires to break out at times and the wind, then, carried over the colorful sand until it descended upon the city and colored the houses. On first glimpse, it looked boring, desolate, but if inspected closely, it was brimming with colors and energy in its very own and quite dangerous way. 

“I hope he isn’t…” All the honesty possibly put into words seemed to tear apart Jeno’s, and as much as the Keeper wanted to fear the outcome, the betrayal and the loss, the moment his hands would not only be smeared in black and silver, he couldn’t help falling for his lover’s hope. If only this new kid was kind and open-hearted, willing to stay with them, find refuge in their city and remain peaceful in exchange for shelter, it might turn out to be quite a lively place again. But it might also be lonely, for this new one, to stay with a taken couple all on his own.

Renjun grunted. Those were too many thoughts, too many possibilities, for him to want to indulge. Merely that tuning out his own voices of reasons had never been easy, and moments like these, when he felt stressed, turned every coin thrice, he felt thankful for Jeno and the lips that traced his jugular arteries in an attempt to distract him with little gestures of love. He smiled. Turned his head and kissed Jeno, wanted to taste nothing but his lover for the little time they had left before facing a new situation.

  


By the time dusk descended upon them, they had already settled into their home again, their dinner boiling on the stove so they could eat. It was an easy routine, cooking in the morning and evening, usually making more in the early day so they could eat it throughout the day as well. Over time, their daily schedule had settled like this, with getting up around dawn and preparing their meal, then checking on all their raised plants and making sure every facility was maintained well, decreasing the risk of running into faults caused by harsher weather conditions or time. That they made one more serving was new, though, and for the first time they had decided on taking their dinner over to the stranger kid’s to talk it out together, rather than Renjun just delivering the meal and collecting the utensils afterwards. Which also meant, it would be the first time for Jeno to meet the Doppelgänger when conscious rather than the Keeper taking care of it all.

“Did you talk with him yet?” The younger checked, holding onto two bowls and leaving the task of opening doors to Renjun who still had one of his hands free. Their walking pace was comfortable, not hurried like on the days during the raining season or the biting cold of winter. The warm days were plenty in comparison but it also meant the less bright days were all the harsher.

“Not much,” the Keeper answered honestly, albeit he had wanted to, the boy had hardly been conscious, energy barely so lasting to eat up the meals delivered to him. “Why? Are you scared?” There was a teasing glint in his eyes as he looked at the black haired. 

Under the bright reds and purples of dusk, he thought Jeno’s striking contrasts of pitch black hair and enigmatic eyes to pale white skin were all the more appealing. Then again, to him the wingless angel looked stunning no matter what, compliments that he kept lodged in his throat. A part of him was still certain that Jeno must have been aware of it thanks to all the admiration the Keeper carried within his eyes when taking in the sight presented. 

The jingling of bells interrupted their short conversation as Renjun pushed open the door to the other house, a clean and distinct sound cutting through the vast serenity of the city. It did wonders in warning not only them in case the stronger decided to leave the comfort of the building but also to the sick to signal their arrival. Regardless, the ruler found himself surprised when they headed to the backroom and the Doppelgänger, rather than looking relaxed, was curled up within his blankets and looked defensive from his spot in the corner of the room, like a cornered animal ready to jump out. All the more he was surprised when in foreign tongue they were asked, “How is Chenle?”

Knowledge took all shapes and forms, one of them being the magnitude of languages that were spoken throughout the universe, and a taken aback Keeper had some troubles at first sorting through the many tongues stored in his mental library. Once he had, though, a frown built between his brows as he took in the glistening boy and returned, “There was only you.”

His answer, although startling the Doppelgänger, must come as a surprise to him. Small eyes widened, worry was exuding from his slender body, and he repeated, “Only me?”

Renjun nodded slowly, aware of the confusion maring Jeno’s stance behind him. He brushed it off, instead went forward and held the bowl of stew out for the kid to take. “Who’s Chenle?” The wingless boy’s tension was palpable to him as the unknown kid crawled forth and took the meal, fingers still trembling from the strain his body must have taken thanks to for whatever he had been sent into quarantine. 

“He was with me…” The solemn tone nearly broke Renjun’s heart but Jeno’s arm brushing against his reminded him to not yet fall for it. It was easier for the tattooed to remain distant when he could not understand any of what he said, it just didn’t mean it would make it easier for the Keeper too. “We were sent here together so I thought he would-” The Doppelgänger hiccupped, tears brimming his eyes but before any of the sparkling droplets could fall, his face was lowered in pretense of prioritizing food.

“You arrived at night,” Renjun explained softly, the foreign language feeling heavy on his tongue and straining the muscle so used to only his own diction and the one he had taken on for Jeno. Now it meant he might have to teach either of the two a new language. If the Doppelgänger decided to remain with them anyways. “I only saw your capsule landing because it was within the suburbs but if another one landed… I’m sorry, I didn’t see.”

The boy only nodded in response, head still hung low, the only positive sign about the situation being his slowly eating the meal. In a way, it looked strained still, as if he wanted to both gobble it up and savor the taste so Renjun went on, “There’s more where this came from. You don’t need to hold back.” He smiled at the Doppelgänger who looked up in surprise, and then his eating speed increased by a bunch. That alone was enough to even take the tension out of Jeno behind him, and the Keeper had nearly forgotten about his lover, was only reminded of his presence by the bowl held out to him too. It was Renjun’s turn to look at the wingless, smiling softly, and nodded towards the two chairs in the corner of the room they settled on.

Just like that, a while seemed to pass, and when the Doppelgänger was done eating, Jeno silently handed over his bowl too. Pale arms wrapped around Renjun’s middle who started to feed the both of them a spoon each in turn, sharing the meal silently between them. Only when he decided he had had enough and put the leftovers into the younger’s hand did he decide to start the conversation again. “You can stay with us, if you want. We don’t have much to offer, but it’s still better than taking the risk of trying to survive in the desert… If you stay, you’ll need to help us out, though. It’s only been the two of us so far and we’d need to accomodate to another person first… It’s just that staying with us is still better than dying alone in the unknown, I think…”

The boy looked uncertain for a moment or two, little eyes darting between the two inhabitants for a bit. Likely he was weighing off his options, one by one, then a timid smile broke across his face. “I’m Jisung.”

It was all the answer Renjun needed, and apparently Jeno too, who, for the first time, spoke up, “Jeno. Renjun.” His birthmarked finger pointed at either of them respectively, and the Keeper couldn’t help smiling with how easily it had been resolved after all. Jisung, though, still looked worn out, so for now they decided to let him rest, and Renjun gave him instructions on where to find them the following day when he felt fit enough to get up. The next weeks might be tiring for all of them anyways, they had to adjust to new people either way, and the boy would need to cope with the loss of his friend too.

  


“I feel for him,” the Keeper pointed out as he slotted his fingers between Jeno’s on the way home. The younger only hummed in question, a silent prompt for him to go on that he’d readily indulge. “Both of us arrived on our own but he might have just lost the only semblance of home he had ever known. I don’t think the friend who came with him has survived if he didn’t show up so far.”

“We’ll find a way to test it.” Jeno’s longer fingers squeezed around his, shared warmth, sparked the kind of hope Renjun hated to indulge but the wingless seemed to so readily indulge again and again. Renjun wanted to dislike Jeno for it but one look at the younger, at all the tenderness of the universe contained within beautiful eyes, and he found himself unable to do more than smile shyly as he averted his gaze.

“Maybe,” he agreed, heart beating in his ears as he pushed the door open to their home. It seemed to carry a heavier meaning, to call it their home, now that there was another person living within the far spread city with them. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


True to Jeno’s words, albeit they did not find the mysterious Chenle themselves, they did figure out a way to send a signal of sorts to the kid that might still be out there. All thanks to the winged boy’s and the Keeper’s wits combined, it was an actually simple but effective method anyways. Due to Jisung’s capsule crashing several houses, they were able to collect enough debris to build an oven of sorts, putting the pieces in circles to erect a well-like frame a good distance outside the city. That process alone cost them merely a day and it drained a lot of Jeno’s strength, to the point Renjun felt sorry for not having abilities of the amount that would actually take the physical burden off the younger.

After, it took the better part of another day to work a broken window glass into a lens that allowed them to collimate enough light to ignite the sand within the frame until it burst. Colorful dust rose, turning into a smoke signal not unlike the kind that had been ignited upon Jeno’s fall from the skies, only that this time around it was intentional, and it had no mesmerizing effect of turning beautiful wings into a sparkling galaxy. Instead, it had no other job than to rise and turn into a flare, and initially Jisung had offered to take care of it, make sure that always enough sand was kept within the contained fireplace that the colorful bursts would not stopped. Both Jeno and Renjun had deemed it too dangerous for the kid not used to the power the seemingly harmless grains could contain. 

Counting from the night of the Doppelgänger’s arrival, it took eight days until their efforts bore fruit. Renjun had already given up his little hopes of the lost one to find them, not to mention having survived in first place. But that day, as Jeno had gone to shovel more sand into the furnace, as the Keeper had expected no one but his lover to return, he had been faced with the unexpected event of the younger returning with an emaciated boy in his arms.

Another six days passed, of Jisung diligently watching over his friend, tucking him into blankets and feeding him meals and water, before the boy - Chenle - returned to consciousness. At least, Jisung and Chenle spoke the same language, making it easier for Renjun to communicate as he sat down in their shared bedroom and talked to the boy. Simple things first, like asking him whether he wanted to stay like his companion or rather take the risk to venture out into the desert again. The two of them, regardless, were aware it was an impossible task.

Chenle had spent a good week out there, with nothing else in sight but the smoke signal he had eventually seen, making it a fruitless attempt to try to discover more. Not to mention that Jisung had way worse chances at surviving out there, for Chenle belonged to a race the books described as Breather. They usually didn’t venture far from their home planet, despite their outstanding abilities. All four of their kinds - the Keeper, the winged, the Doppelgänger, the Breather - were humanoid, descending from the same race but evolved in different ways, but the Breathers were the most otherwise in terms of physiology. Unlike most humanoid races, they did not rely on lungs to breathe, instead, their skin cells had managed a way to filter oxygen from their surroundings, allowing them to survive in the most unexpected of surroundings, if only there was a sufficient amount. They relied on oxygen more than anything else, meaning they could stand a longer time deprived of water and foods.

The kid must have been aware, Jisung was too different to that. Doppelgängers were not made to survive by withstanding their surroundings, they were a race used to adapting, taking different shapes to disguise themselves in case of danger. But Renjun was not blind to the longing in Chenle’s eyes, the fear of staying with people he did not know, and yet, similar to the way the Keeper had learnt to rely on Jeno’s support, a single glance at Jisung seeming content appeared to be enough to calm his nervous heart. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


As it turned out, Chenle had not only an affinity for technology but also an impeccable ability to fit in with their little group. Undoubtedly it had been hard at first, each day draining Renjun out until he fell to bed in exhaustion because he needed to think in too many languages at once, had to explain all the things they necessitated with Jeno being unable to support him not knowing the different languages. Which didn’t mean the winged wasn’t useful, on the contrary, the Keeper wasn’t certain he’d be able to go on quite as steadily if not for the warm embrace that welcomed him to bed every night, the simple task of sleeping in the younger’s arms enough to ease the stress out of his system again and again.

Fifty-seven days alone were needed for the two new kids to fit in with them and get used to their system, the plants they had grown flourishing and doubling so there would be no need to cut down on food and contrary to Jeno’s and Renjun’s house, the two friends’ was brimming with life. They had made it their task to collect things from the houses all over the city in their free time, had found colors and tools and whatever else there was to decorate their home. When the Keeper had done the same as child, all he had focused on had been the things he needed to survive, find food and medical equipment, store blankets and clothes, he had been pragmatic and practical. Sometimes he felt guilty for never having put the effort into their home the same way the younger ones did, and again and again Jeno reassured him warm eyes and gentle touches that it was alright.

But somehow, in his free time, Chenle had managed to construct a little machine, an AI. It was built from the leftovers of their capsules alone, as Renjun’s ship had been destroyed and Jeno had arrived with nothing but his wings on his body, but it was working well. The Breather had named it Yeeun, for whatever unknown reason, and the Keeper had never questioned it, but she was useful. Yeeun had helped the boys to learn Jeno’s language, a tongue the oldest was already fluent in, and all the AI had needed for that was to listen in on them as they talked. In short, it was nothing if not fascinating.

  


Renjun couldn’t help being intrigued by it. Knowing about AI and how it worked was one thing but it was another to see it in front of him, to look at the little tool that was no bigger than one of the dictionaries he remembered to be placed in the main street of his old district, a sheer white that reminded him of home as he looked at her little frame. He had yet to figure out how Yeeun had decided on being female but that was a question for another day indeed.

“Are you still looking at her?” Jeno asked, sounding no better than a sulky kid as he glued himself to the Keeper’s back, chin resting on a tender shoulder to look at the white construction as well.

  


“Don’t act like you don’t like her too,” Renjun protested, exasperated, as he pressed his elbow between Jeno’s ribs. For a moment, the younger winced, but then the Keeper already found himself hurled onto their shared bed, laughter bubbling in his chest as they rolled around for a while. 

Jeno had always made it easy for him to get lost in the moment, to just drown in those dark eyes and get swallowed by all the emotions behind, get lured in by those rosy lips that still felt best pressed against his own. That also looked best when kissed and bitten red, more mesmerizing than the crimson red of exploding sand. A look Renjun had just achieved and was willing to indulge further if not for Yeeun’s beeping and interrupting voice, “Incoming message. Do you want to receive it?”

Both the boys froze in their spot, looking in confusion at the AI standing on a little table in the middle of their mostly empty bedroom. If just observed like this, she might as well have been a random object, nothing gave away she was a working mechanism, so her voice sounded nearly eerie as she repeated her words while in the far distance, lighting was illuminating the brooding skies. A simple word of agreement, and instead of Yeeun’s gentle voice, the next thing they were was an unknown person calling for them, “Hi? Is there someone?” Static noise. “I’m looking for-” More noise. “-ng Renjun. Is he there? Is he still alive?”

Renjun froze in his place, the distant memory of his mother tongue yelled on the streets down below his window, a beautiful and melodic language, he had nearly forgotten how it sounded. A foreign speech to Jeno, but names were always the same, easily recognized and in an instant, the younger tensed up, muscles prepared to do whatever because there was no enemy brute force could be used against. It drove shivers down Renjun’s spine, the feral look in his lover’s eyes combined with the static noise in the back.

“Hello? If you can hear me, I’m-” Noise. “-njun. He’s-” Noise. “-ast relative.”

Blame it on the fast working of Renjun’s brain, he was easily able to fill the gaps between the words, and his heart was torn between useless aggression and utter despair. Hope was non-existent. He couldn’t hope, when he already knew no one else was left to share the burden of their living library with him. “There’s no one left but me….”

“Response: sent.” Yeeun’s voice sounded too clean, nearly clinical, when compared to the unsteady sound of the stranger. 

“...name is Huang Xuxi and…” Renjun perked up at the name, eyes widening in surprise as he still stared at the AI who forwarded the message to them. “...mixed race. My mother died…” Noise. “-iper. But…” Noise. “...not affect me. Thank my fath-” 

The message cut off and silence filled their room before Yeeun interrupted it again with the words, “The signal was lost. I must apologize, my reach is not great enough to keep up communication. Searching databases for Huang Xuxi. Huang Xuxi was not found in my database, he was not kept at the Laboratories.”

Huang Xuxi. The name echoed through Renjun’s mind regardless, his brain working to keep up with the knowledge he had just received but his memory was void of the name. Even just trying to ask the Link about it was an impossible task, if this guy was actually the child of a Keeper, she would have been exiled after leaving their planet for selfish reasons, the Link a one-way trail of her being able to retrieve all the knowledge but whatever memories she kept were no longer of worth for the system. 

On the other hand, Keepers never gave away their full name. Huang belonged to their race alone, it was like a treasure and a code alike, helped them to recognize each other even when they did not know one another, a secret passed down from generation to generation so if that stranger knew of his family name, more so, claimed to carry it of his own, he must have had access to one of their kind once. Only that Keepers were closed off, they didn’t spread knowledge not meant for others, it pained them worse than any torture ever could to tell things the receivers were not ready to hear. But this boy-

“...njun. Renjun.” Jeno’s voice cut through the hazard in his mind as fingers gripped his chin and demanded him to look at his lover again, rather than Yeeun who remained silent in the center of the room. “Renjun. Are you okay?”

He wanted to test it, try it out, wanted to say his full name out loud for Jeno to hear, but all it did was numb his tongue and twist the muscle within his throat. It was impossible for him, to share a secret with someone who did not belong to his kind, and maybe the Link was sexist to rule out Jeno as possible love interest because of his gender alone, at the moment it was welcome to the Keeper. Had the Link recognized Jeno as a threat, he, too, would have been cut off like this Huang Xuxi’s supposed mother, and that thought alone was scary enough to drive the tears into Renjun’s eyes.

With a sob, he wrapped his arms around the younger, pulled the wingless body against his own just so he could feel the familiar weight burdening his body. Jeno still was home, his comfort in times of turmoil, and this time his tongue did not deny him as he cried, “I might have a relative after all.”

Jeno had never told him about his family, but the tenderness he was suddenly treated with had Renjun overthinking in the moment. His library held no records of winged people as beautiful as the boy buried into his chest, so he could not possibly know, could only sense that whatever had brought the younger to this planet had a whole lot to do with losing family of his own. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


Xuxi’s calls - or Lucas, as he preferred to be called - became a somewhat steady occurrence in Renjun’s life. Sometimes only a few days passed at times and sometimes it was a few weeks in between. A few times Lucas had mentioned staying in the vicinity of their planet so he could call in at times, but other times… Now, Jeno had not exactly taken it with ease when his mouth had been busy sending Renjun to the stars and back only for Yeeun to forward the signal immediately. It had been one torturous call, of his pride forbidding him to tell his distant cousin just what they had been busy doing at the moment and Jeno vying for all his attention to be channeled on his lover alone. After that one incident, Yeeun had proven to be a bit more insightful on when, and especially when not, to just forward the signal she received from the spaceship.

But getting there had actually taken time. Especially in the first times, he had kept asking the unknown boy questions of all sorts, his mysterious mother’s name to check with the link, whether he had ever been to the Library, how he had found Renjun, how he knew not to be infected with the Viper. And in return, Lucas had asked a lot of questions himself. Wondered whether there would be any other survivors, a question the Keeper could easily give an answer to. Or whether the stories he had been told by his mother had been right. They had been, in fact, as Keepers detested lying. Knowledge, after all, was meant to be used to find the truth, be it harmful or not.

Like that, Lucas slowly became a steady presence in their lives, but with all new inventions, there had been downsides. Jeno didn’t take to it too well at first, and without speaking a word, Renjun understood. Suddenly, the older had someone out there, someone to relate to, someone he could talk to, in their mother tongue no less, and it was different after all. Lucas was not a presence he could intimidate like Jisung or Chenle, in case either of the younger boys tried to make moves on him, but someone to connect with on a mental level, and that was more dangerous in a way. 

In between making sure Jisung and Chenle were still doing all their works properly, and talking to Lucas, Renjun suddenly had found himself busy with a pouty puppy lying in his bed. Cuddles had turned into something he had to coax from Jeno, had to whisper his confessions into bare skin, promises of not just leaving his lover behind because of someone he did not know, reassurances of how a relation like that could never ever rival the connection, the bond, the two of them had forged throughout the years. It took time, but Renjun was nothing if not stolid in pursuit of what he wanted. In this case, to hold on to Jeno’s fragile heart.

Did not mean he did not need to battle Jeno’s jealousy at times, the kind that was not expressed in obvious ways like shutting down Lucas’ calls or interrupting them, neither did he voice his needs out. Instead, Jeno became clingy and distant at once, silently called for attention and wanted to be wooed over and over again. And Renjun could not even protest, not when he knew how scary it was to lose something one loved, not when he was equally afraid of scaring Jeno away.

Albeit there had been a time he had questioned his feelings, he had found them validated by the time Jisung and Chenle had arrived. Their situation was still the same, they all had to rely on each other, work together, were stuck in the same spot and situation. But neither of them ever drew any sort of reaction from in the way Jeno did. There was no urge to protect them that went above that of a brother, there was no desire to kiss them, touch them or be overly close to them, there was no requiring of knowing all about them. Or rather, only to an extent. He was curious, yes, a Keeper always wanted to know and to learn, and yet none of their scars were fascinating in the way Jeno’s had been when he had first seen them. 

All in all, throughout the raining and cold season, they managed to settle with this new sort of routine, even when facing the cold just to be able to eat together was a bit bothersome at times. That part, definitely, had been easier when it had only been the two of them, not needing to move houses to have dinner. Only once a week had they needed to check on their greenhouses, get enough food to not have to move over for another few days without worries. But the younger ones’ house was not as well equipped for cooking as theirs, so they had dug their own hole in that sense. Despite Renjun’s protests and whines before and after each, he never did actually mind. Because sitting together with the kids and eating all together, carrying some semblance of a family, was still the most heartwarming part of their day. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


As it seemed, the two kids had started a whole chain reaction. Jeno and Renjun had been alone for so long, the Keeper had no longer expected anyone to ever end up exactly at where they had been. The winged boy himself, back when he arrived, had seemed like a miracle to the ruler who had approached madness by the day thanks to how lonely he felt. And after he had made peace with it being just the two of them, the mere fact they received not only Jisung but had even Chenle find his way to the city was an incredulous fact. But fate always had had funny ways of twisting and turning things around, and that said a lot coming from Renjun, who did not believe in fate, only in possibility and probability.

This time around, the meteor-like arrival came with the beginning of the heat season. Some planets called them summer but Renjun had often deemed it unfit. Summer implied a four season system with a mostly equal share each, but the quarantined planet only consisted of the heat that took a good half of the year, then there was rain with all its dangers of lighting hitting sand and exploding it into cruel fires, and then came the cold, with temperatures low enough to freeze them all to death if they didn’t take care.

With the ice still thawing beneath their feet, the ground was still wet, the stones colored a darker color thanks to the moisture, and Chenle and Jisung had fun experimenting with the colorful dust they had collected during the harmless days of rain season and somehow even managed to filter. Now, there were smears of pigment along the walls that would eventually dry with the heat and maybe, if the kids were lucky, bake into the surface to last even through the next rain and cold. 

Yet too cold to sit outside for long but too sunny to want to stay inside, Renjun had taken to setting up the roof of a building close to their house for the summer. It was one of the few that were accessible from the outside, allowing him to drag up blankets and build some sort of nest for Jeno and him to rest in on warm evenings. To the Keeper, it was fun to analyze the stars and try to align them with the maps he held in his mind until he was able to slowly figure out just where within the galaxies they were kept. Moments like these were what he had always adored, to just stay within his lover’s arms and imagine it as a moment that could last forever. 

On this particular day, as he was currently busy spreading out old leaves from the greenhouses to isolate the ground, a stack of blankets already put into the corner of the roof, he heard the sound before he caught sight. A loud whizzing signaled the arrival of something - someone? - as the noise grew before it ended with a loud crash, an occurrence that seemed to last so long and yet it took but a few seconds. Still enough of a disturbance to cause a whirr to ghost in his ears as he tried to locate whatever place the fall had taken place at. 

It was easier for him, just turn around and look for something, but it was not. This time around, with the sand too cold to catch fire, there was no clouds of dusts or flares out there. But there was Jeno, running on the street below and approaching the house Renjun had been on top of, worry in his eyes palpable even from the distance that only eased when seeing the Keeper being safe and well. “Did you see where it came from?”

The older shook his head in denial, his gaze roaming over the spread out leaves for another moment before he made his way to the stairs to get done to where Jeno was. “Should we go look for it? Or rather pass some time?” He asked, his fingers finding their match, the warmth of Jeno’s palm seeping through his skin too. 

“Look for it,” Jeno said decisively, but held tight onto the older’s hand when Renjun was about to get going, “But together. And let’s tell the kids to lock themselves in first. In case it’s not a friendly being.”

Renjun, for a moment, looked in surprise at their interlocked hands but realizing the hidden meaning behind those words, he couldn’t help smiling softly. He nodded his head in agreement. “Let’s go find them first then.”

With the lack of a visual signal, they had to rely on their other senses a lot more; try to sniff out a difference in the airflow, listen to the noises of debris moving. In itself, it was not a bad way to pass time, strolling through the different quarters of the city, more layers of clothes on their bodies to ward off the cold. They hadn’t done this in long, just spend the time while taking in what was around them.

  


“Do you think they will stay too?” Renjun asked after a while, kicking at some stones on the floor, listening to the sound they made as they hit the walls and ground. Two positive cases did not ensure a third, it was like flipping a coin again and again, could go this way and that. Either yes or no. There was no way of predicting the outcome anyways.

“Do you want them to stay?” Jeno asked in return, a gentle smile on his lips as he just watched on. It was slowly getting chillier with the approaching dusk again, but the younger did not yet show any sign of freezing. 

Renjun bit back some cheesy words, phrases of how he only needed Jeno to stay, and the thought alone was embarrassing enough for him to lower his head instead. “Come on,” he demanded, and tugged at the younger’s hand to go on.

Beside them, the skies were already coloring in different hues, bright and mellow at once, maybe it was just the implication of what was soon to follow. It was a bit frustrating nevertheless, to go on searching and searching and have no idea what they were even looking for. As much as he enjoyed their shared time, the underlying intention of their walk was a prickly reminder at the back of his mind. Eventually, Renjun declared, “I think I liked your arrival most. I could see you falling and I could easily find you and you looked so beautiful that day…”

He could see it in Jeno’s shoulders, the urge to just curl up for a moment to ward off the attention that would arrive with the inherent shyness. “I was a scrawny kid, Renjun-”

“And yet you saved me that night,” the Keeper whispered, voice soft and silent as he looked at his lover, wanted to say more but an unknown voice and call interrupted them. In this moment, he could see his own surprise mirrored on Jeno’s face. Jisung and Chenle had spoken the same language, indeed, but it had still been different from theirs. Lucas, too, must only be able to speak his language because of his mixed blood. But this voice was unknown, a stranger, yet it was Jeno’s tongue without doubt. 

He could also see the hesitation in Jeno’s eyes, the same he must have shown that night he had first been contacted by Lucas. It was a situation they could not file, too unexpected to be able to deal with but at times it was still a one-way street, something they could not escape, no matter how much they wanted to try. Renjun wished they had tried harder, for only a second after he had caught sight of a boy - clearly their age, pink hair, prominent blue lines on his arms - his sight had been stolen by black wings shielding him from all. But no matter how much Jeno wanted to shield him, there was nothing he could forget, and in this peculiar case it was the sight of the boy so close to them. Blue lines. Veins. “Blue blood…”

The winged trembled in front of him, a shiver either of anger or fear, Renjun could not tell, but it was merely an addition to what the wings had already given away. It pained his heart to know there was something - someone - to have affected Jeno in the past to the point of triggering such an extreme reaction now. A silent whisper of the younger’s name as he cupped the winged one’s face gently.

It was accompanied by the shout from the boy outside their little feathered dome, voice more gentle than what Renjun would have anticipated from a boy with an origin like that. “I know I’m not the most trustworthy to you at the moment but… I really did not come here with malicious intent. On the contrary, I think me being here actually proves I can’t do anything to hurt you anyways. And I don’t think anyone of my blood can either, at this point…”

“Jeno…” Renjun whispered, forcing the younger to look him in the eyes, searched his black orbs for the tenderness he was usually used to. It took time, moments of their little closed off space warming up but the Blue Blood out there likely getting cold to the point he would risk hypothermia. Eventually, though, his wings parted but they were not folded in, as if he still feared an attack that was unlikely to happen on a boy so scarcely dressed. The Keeper remained in place for another moment, gave his lover a prying gaze before his face froze over and he turned around. “I’m giving you the benefit of doubt for the moment, because we were all sent here for a reason. You can come with us and stay the night but the moment I think you’ll become a threat to any of us, I won’t hesitate to see you out myself. Are you able to stick with this decision?”

The stranger looked nothing short of pathetic, arms closed tightly around his shivering frame, thin shirt hardly fending off the cold. Pink strands moved as the kid nodded his head. “I can. I won’t hurt anyone, I promise.” He was silent for a second, licked his lips, then added on, “My name is Jaemin, by the way.”

The Keeper just looked at him for another moment, before he whispered, “Don’t give a promise you’re not sure you can keep…” Blindly he reached for Jeno’s hand behind him, a gentle reassurance, a steady hold, as he made sure to choose a more complicated than necessary route to get back home. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


After coming back home, Jeno had refused to leave the house for three days now, just stayed in their bedroom, seated on the mattress and watching the outside change with daytime while playing around with his wings. Renjun could only try to understand, the reasons that were obvious or hidden. Carrying wings when one was clearly broken must not be comfortable, and neither Chenle nor Jisung had been aware of what Jeno could do before, still were clueless thanks to the self-assigned house arrest. But whatever was going on between the two races of winged people and Blue Bloods was a mystery to Renjun. His only comfort was neither of the youngsters questioning him, must have sensed something was off when Renjun had only given them tense smiles at first.

Slowly, though, Jeno closing himself off was taking a toll on him, and not even in the physical department. They had taken to eat their meals at home again, just the two of them while Renjun delivered servings to the other three, and slept covered by the beautiful black feathers. It was oddly intimate, always had been, the way they slept bare of clothes while covered by the impenetrable darkness of the wings. But it was empty, lacking the words and explanations, all Renjun could do was try to coax affection and trust out of Jeno with tender touch.

He didn't dare question Jaemin, the thought alone felt like a breach if privacy, but it didn't mean he was about to push the other away. Freedom was not something he was about to take from others, so he did not dare protest when he heard steps coming up the stairs, approaching him on the roof. Their little stargazing nest had been finished since some hours ago, although it hadn't seemed as if he'd get company any time soon, considering Jeno was still isolating himself. If only he strained his eyes enough, he was certain he could see the outlines of Jeno's dark wings in their bedroom window, though. One of the few rooms that had glass panes replacing most of the outside wall, granting them a wonderful view of what was outside, whatever they dared look out for.

The steps approaching him now were not his lover's, something he didn't need his eyes for to realize, not when Jeno carried wings on his back and the sound was too light. Neither did they carry the ease of the kids, none of the underlying joy of acquired freedom. In their own way, not defined by gravity, they were heavy, burdened not by a physical strain but a mental weight. "Blue Blood," Renjun thus greeted, without even looking over to prove his assumption right. The short pause was enough of a reply anyways.

"Am I disturbing you?" The other asked, not daring to step closer seemingly, stopped in hia tracks, and Renjun finally looked. Jaemin's eyes were filled with hesitation, tender prodding of what he did was right or not, wanted or declined.

"You're not a threat to me." The hidden implication was there, weighing in the air between them, a subtle consideration that had to be made. Jaemin made his decision when he stepped closer, nervously settled at the edge of the heap of blankets, gaze directed at the house that was marked as Jeno's and Renjun's. Still, the curiosity burned hot within his veins and it was not like he was intruding on his own lover’s privacy by asking, “What is a Blue Blood doing here anyways?”

Their kind, Jaemin’s own blood, was rare and treasured. Nearly all humanoid races had the same origin and although it was too many years to count past, many of their rulers had been called as such. In retrospect, it was hilarious, how people thought that just because veins shone blue through the skin, their blood was supposed to be that very color. But it lasted, a name that remained throughout time and by the time they had to evacuate their planet of origin, scientists had already found a way to make the name ring true, a genetic modification, a distinct trait to set the crown apart from the commoners. By now, with all the time that had passed, there had been all kinds of developments in terms of evolution, proof of that being his own silvery blood, Jeno’s inky black, but the royal blue had kept their title all throughout.

They usually liked to stick with each other, kept their bloodline pure and true, and they kept carrying the crowns of many planets, albeit most of them were within the same galaxy. Like an unspoken rule, they were not to be touched, not to be harmed, protected better than Renjun’s own home planet and yet, this boy looking so perfectly healthy, was sitting in front of him, sent to a planet meant for the incurable sick. Even if it were people like Renjun, possibly still carrying the Viper within his veins that would only attack him and maybe Xuxi, the guards had been too afraid of the virus developing and attacking other races alike.

“There was a revolt.” It seemed like it explained it all, the mere implication of a monarchy overthrown, commoners demanding for equal rights, maybe just selfish reasons of a few. It did not. And Jaemin must think so too, as he sighed softly, in that regal way only royals could stomach, and muttered, “Some months ago, my father was attacked by assassins so he dug out some plotting group. Apparently, one of the members belonged to another crown and the people used it against my father.” There was a wry smile on the assumed prince’s lips. “I’m not saying he was a kind king, or that it wasn’t expected to happen sooner or later. The nEOS are the best judges of that. But regardless of all, he was still my father…”

Renjun wished he could understand such a situation, but even with his perfect memory, the reminder of his family was different. He could easily tell how his mother and father had looked, how their voices sounded, how their touch was more caring than even Jeno’s; he could not tell what kind of feelings had bound him to them after losing them so early into his life. 

“They didn’t dare eliminate me, so they rather sent me here,” Jaemin admitted, the reasons remained unspoken about, his gaze burnt all the brighter in contrast. Honeyed orbs were directed to where Jeno had approached the window, standing in front of it and watching them from the distance, and Renjun followed the sight. “Maybe they had hoped for him to take care of that problem instead…”

The Keeper’s fine hair of the nape bristled at the mention of that, at the mere idea of Jeno committing murder like a shameless criminal. Speaking the truth was like a law engraved in his genes, so he could not deny that sometimes there seemed to be something feral about his lover, especially whenever Jeno had one of his possessive moments, but there had always been an invisible line. Something to hold the younger back, keep him in control, and Renjun doubted all the hate of the universe could force Jeno into unjustified murder.

The prince must have noticed the tension charging the air around them, for their gazes met again, and Renjun’s frown deepened. It wasn’t erased easily, not even when the newcomer went on, “He has every right to, after what my family did.” Jaemin’s gaze was testing, prodding, looking for something Renjun was not certain he was showing when he must have anyways. “He did not tell you?”

It made him uncomfortable, how easily Jaemin could read him, analyze their relationship by extension. It drove a freezing shiver down his spine. But he didn’t have it in him to give a reply of any sort, too torn between wanting to hear it from Jeno himself and finally being able to understand Jeno’s situation. So he remained silent, only glared at the candy haired boy, awaited the other to render a decision for him. 

“His kind, the nEOS, come from the same planetary system as me. I remember stories of them being feared hunters, some sort of heavenly judges, before my family started to act out. They found ways to take them down and then realized that the best way to kill a nEOS was by using their wings against them, they started to hunt them down… They developed methods of forging their wings like metal to turn them into blades and spears, weaved them into shields and armor… Before I had been born, they had already been reduced to a fraction of their original count. Eventually, the Guard marked them as a protected race but not all conformed with that decision when their wings were still such a beautiful trophy.”

On instinct, Renjun’s gaze drifted down to his hands, to the countless smaller scars he carried along his digits and palms, some of them drawn up to his elbows even and he knew, in less than a few weeks time, his hands would become useless all over again. For the sake of ridding Jeno of the burden of the wings, he would need to tear them out again, until the lasting trace was nothing but the bandages covering their skin.

Some would probably call him crazy, for going as far as doing it like this, when it was the only option left. There were no weapons left on this planet, and they had lost some of their best kitchen knives on the futile effort of trying to cut through the sturdy feathers. Renjun could see why they had done it, why they had used these wings as weapons, and he hated it, felt the bile rise hot in his throat. His fingers tightened, recalling how he had wrapped his fingers around the most vulnerable and most protected part of Jeno’s wings only to tear them out like a hunter no better than the ones of Jaemin’s rule. 

His fingers trembled, but this time the Blue Blood remained oblivious of his reaction. “He didn’t have wings before he recognized me, did he?” It surfaced again, the royal’s intimidating ability to read Renjun like an open book, as if he was the Keeper and the ruler just literature. Their roles reversed. A sad smile maring a beautiful face. “No one was interested in letting the nEOS survive after their wings were taken off so if he can do it… If he can grow them… You can’t ever tell anyone.” Or they will hunt him down and torture him for an unending supply.

Renjun swallowed, his mind conjuring the material of this without his command, replaying Jeno’s tortured screams and how blood and silver had mixed, the weight of the useless wings in his hands that he still did not know the whereabouts of. Over and over again. Without break, Jeno would have to go through that, if only the wrong people learned about it. Now he felt actually sick to the core, did not even manage to bid Jaemin goodbye as he just up and left to find a calm corner to calm down.

  


“What did he tell you?” Jeno asked at night, as they were curled into each other, their truest form hidden from the world and anyone else to see. In lieu of an answer, Renjun pressed tighter against the body promising comfort and warmth. Nimble fingers played with his silvery hair, caressed his nape, scratched against his scalp. “Did he tell you what his people did to me?”

Silently, Renjun nodded his head against Jeno’s chest. It seemed to be more intense, now that the wings were back, this scent of fresh air and the way it alone was nearly enough to make him go lightheaded. 

“They slaughtered us… Children, elders, the strong and the weak - they did not discriminate on their journey of greed.” The younger released a dry laughter that hurt more than any words ever could. “Isn’t it funny that the only time people don’t discriminate is when they plan to injure?”

Gently the Keeper traced his fingers along Jeno’s cheek, pressed his colder palm against the tender skin. In a way, he could understand. What had slaughtered his kind had not been other people but a virus, yet it took away from all of them equally, until only one clueless kid had been left behind. Too young to understand, too knowing to not see the terror behind it all. 

“Before the worst of it had happened, there had been rumors of a young prince trying to befriend people of my folk, going as far as to try to save some. It might have been Jaemin.” Because a friendly prince, one who was willing to stand with his people, not siding with the crown itself, was harder to explain the execution of than a king who had watched innocents slaughtered, or maybe ordered for it. “If he’s that boy, I won’t hold the burden of his blood against him. But if not…”

Renjun heard more than saw the rustling of feathers as they spread out. Deadly weapons, as Jaemin had said. Contrasting the words Jeno said, an inherent kindness, an explanation in itself as to why they had been called heavenly judges, whether it was just Jeno or the whole of his kind. 

“We’ll find out,” Renjun promised, and pressed a tender kiss against the younger’s lips. “Together.”

Jeno’s arm, along with his wing resting behind the Keeper, tightened around his frame, and pulled him closer until not even air would fit between their frames. An unspoken confession, a declaration of love. It warmed the Keeper inside out, a gesture he silently reciprocated by caressing the base of his wings while he still could. Soon, he’d have to wrap his fingers around them with a way less innocent intent. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


Lucas was in the vicinity already by the next night, and Renjun jumped on the opportunity to talk to someone who might have better access to outside knowledge maybe. To not disrupt Jeno too much, he had taken Yeeun along to the kitchen instead, sipping on some tea as he had the white AI standing in front of him. As much as his lover tried to accept Lucas as part of Renjun’s family, there was no denying the barrier built by language still gave cause to feelings of exclusion.

“My favorite cousin!” Lucas cheered, the moment Yeeun had established the connection between them. Renjun did not point out how he might just be the only cousin, and cousin was not even the right term for them. But rather than tracing back the whole of their family tree until he had figured whether and how they were related, then recite the whole title, he’d rather settle with the simpler term. “How are you doing, baby?”

The Keeper grunted into his tea, brows furrowed together. “Okay. Kind of.” Jeno and him seemed to be better, the younger was more active again, albeit still reluctant to go outside and expose himself and the broken wing to the kids. Maybe all the more hesitant because of the Blue Blood roaming their neighborhood. “Say, did you hear of some revolt recently?”

“Revolt?” Lucas asked in surprise, sounding a bit startled, and then there was some yelling from around the other end of the line, people staying in the ship with the half-blood. It were some languages he might know from books but books were not tongue. Their conversation lasted some moments, then it seemed Lucas attention was back on their talk. “Xiaojun said there was some. A whole planetary system ruled by the double Bs overthrown by the commoners. The guards had already suspected them for illegal hunting and collected the monarchy’s weapons in advance which left them more defenseless than they should be. The people raided the palace, yada yada, the only one to survive was the youngest prince who has been missing since. Xiaojun is currently trying to get some more information but…”

Renjun could only assume Lucas was currently judging, instead trying to file all the informations he had currently been given. The basics did fit, were the same for both the stories he had been told. Even so his cousin was quick to go on, “Why do you ask? Aren’t you too closed off to catch onto that kind of gossip?” Fortunately, Renjun was saved having to reply as a distant voice talked to the other boy who was quick to translate, “Rumor has it the prince was too sick for them to just execute him so they rather sent him into exile. More I can’t tell, though. Will you answer my questions now?”

For the sake of fairness, he likely should, but before he could so much as part his lips, there was a faint knock to the door and a split second later an unexpected Jaemin shyly entered. “Xuxi, hey, can we talk later again? Something came up,” the Keeper quickly interrupted, glancing from Yeeun to the prince. “And can you do me a favor and dig for some information of the lost prince? Thank you!” 

Not offering Lucas a chance to reply, he told Yeeun to cut the signal as he simultaneously got up. Only to, a second later, realize he was maybe too scarcely dressed, considering it was his home and he had not expected anyone but Jeno to interact with him before dinner. The blush sat high on his cheeks as he wrapped the shirt he wore tighter around his frame, thankful it was one of Jeno’s and covered his body down to his bare thighs. Yet he felt the burn of Jaemin’s gaze as it met his naked skin, a sensation usually only brought upon him by his own lover who still resided upstairs.

“I thought the quarantined planets were completely locked off,” the prince whispered, voice a tad too hoarse when compared to his normal sound. It had Renjun tighten his arms around his own frame as if it would cover more of his build, trying to find an appropriate reply when his brain seemingly short-circuited. 

Just a second later, the split moment it took to close his eyes and open them again, he found most of his body covered by black feathers, a dark wall between Jaemin and him thanks to Jeno having entered the room. There was a familiar glint in his eyes, the kind Renjun had seen that night Lucas had interrupted their private time, or whenever he had felt threatened by that voice in a far away distance. “Yeeun is a language based computer in origin.”

Renjun barely managed to utter his lover’s name, his hand reaching forth to caress the black feathers tenderly that seemed to tremble with his touch alone. He wasn’t certain whether the prince took the fire out of the situation or poured gasoline into it when Jaemin offered, “I am not here to judge, I’m just surprised… Actually, I just wondered whether I can do anything to help because Jisung said it’s always you two making dinner… I don’t want to just be a burden to you while staying.”

“Jeno,” the Keeper urged, his grip tightening slightly, and this time around Jeno seemed to relent, his wings lowering to the point it looked more like a threat. Not entirely folded in just yet, as it seemed the younger wanted to keep his lover’s modesty in replacement of proper clothes for the time being. 

“We’ll stay and watch,” Jeno insisted as he turned around, wings always keeping perfect coverage of Renjun’s bare skin, a silent tale of possessiveness. His thicker arms wrapped around the Keeper, pulled him close and onto the younger’s lap as they sat down on the already warmed up chair. The signals he sent were obvious ones, enough to send Jaemin the message required, who rather started on the food instead. Mostly, it was silent between them all, aside from the times the young prince asked about the whereabouts of this or that, until the room was slowly filling with the delicious scent of a warm meal. 

“I’ve asked Lucas about him,” Renjun whispered into Jeno’s ear, words forwarded by proximity but easily drowned out by the sound of cooking from Jaemin’s side of the room. “Whether he is the one you mentioned before or not is something we might know soon enough.”

“Would you stop me?” Jeno asked instead of giving a proper reply, fingers dancing along Renjun’s side who slightly squirmed with the gentle touch. It made him sensitive, teased when he should not when another pair of eyes was still watching over them. 

Jaemin’s gaze made him curious, the mix of emotions portrayed between them, a swirl of longing and envy. No green monster of jealousy, not the hint of possessiveness he had no right to show, rather it seemed like a hidden wish of wanting the same, the want to be part of a situation like this. Renjun averted his gaze before he could overthink again. He did not answer Jeno’s question either - would he? When it came down to it, was he willing to step in the way of truth and judgement for what? A stranger with pretty eyes? 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


It was not the same evening but the next morning Lucas got back to him, at about the time Jeno was still drowsy and clingy from sleep and Renjun had to nearly wager war to so much as free himself of the wing still covering them instead of a blanket. “Xuxi,” he grunted, using the name he knew intentionally just to sign the other it was too early for that, “What do you want?”

“Good morning to you too, man,” the older hollered, clearly in a better mood than the Keeper who, for a moment, considered whether the change in pressure in free space might possibly affect the brain. But spaceships had stabilizers to prevent that so maybe not. “Xiaojun diligently dug up all he could find about your prince. Full name Na Jaemin, known to do a bunch of charity and to speak up for the poor. He also tried to make amends with some omitted protected race but further knowledge on that is hidden. Guards say he was quarantined due to an unknown sickness so, little one, is that why you’ve been bugging me about this? Got some new kid to take in again?”

Jeno behind him grumbled under his breath, pulled Renjun back to his chest with sheer force and the older had to, once again, use his whole strength to so much as push down the wing that had covered him again. “I guess we now do,” he tried to say loud enough to be heard by Yeeun but not to the point of disturbing his still sleeping lover. 

Lucas, though, because he could never be quiet, just laughed loudly, preceding some clicking noises, and his booming voice again, “Alright, little one. We stayed up a bit too long now so I’ll head off to bed. And you have a day to lead, I think.” He laughed, again, and Renjun barely so managed to squeeze in some farewell. The silence following felt comfortable again, with the golden sunlight painting their room with warmth and making the wings look mesmerizing in all the right ways. 

With a pleased sigh, he turned onto his other side and nestled up to Jeno again, his ear pressed against the younger’s chest so he could possibly get lulled back to sleep by just listening to his heartbeat. Which would be a lot easier if the winged one didn’t choose this time to come back to the living and awake by asking, “Smells good… What did you make for breakfast?”

It was enough to make Renjun wonder whether his lover had finally gone bonkers when, indeed, a sweet scent hit his nose. An unusual kind of sweetness, as they were mostly used to eat fruits as a replacement for sugary treats they might have known from their previous homes, when this actually smelled like a dish. The Keeper wrinkled his nose, wanted to move closer into Jeno’s arms and maybe enjoy a relaxed morning but when their home smelled of breakfast while the two of them were still in bed, it was grandly suspicious. 

“Did not make anything…” He muttered, pushed Jeno just hard enough to get the hint and roll them around until the wings were spread on the mattress beneath them, the bed too small to carry even half of their span so the left, injured still, hung over the edge pathetically. Still, it was a beautiful sight, the kind Renjun wanted to take in longer and commit to his memory as he sat up and looked down at his angel having turned real. 

Jaemin, he reasoned, just had some really horrendous at always catching them at the wrong moment. The knocking had been drowned out by the rustling of feathers and the prince, likely just having wanted to check in on them, was stuck between door and frame when catching the picture presented to him. Admittedly, it could be mistaken, thanks to how the couple always slept naked in summer, the way Renjun was perked on top of Jeno, yet the older could not avert his gaze once their eyes locked. On the contrary, the silver within his veins boiled hot, for the few seconds he was allowed to, before the nEOS caught on. Too drowsy to get worked up, possessiveness on a low, he did little more than raise a wing to cover the Keeper’s nude form. 

“Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt,” Jaemin eventually said, seemingly having needed to catch himself first too. Renjun couldn’t blame him, not when the blush sat high on his cheeks and painted his chest, not when he didn’t manage to deny the implication because albeit true in general, it didn’t apply to the current moment. One look at Jeno’s lazily burning eyes and he kept quiet, and the prince went on, “Breakfast is ready. Should I call in Chenle and Jisung?”

“Let them sleep in,” Jeno demanded, voice deep and rough from sleep and all the more as he wanted to scare the Blue Blood off. It nearly sparked Renjun’s every nerve. “We’ll be down in a moment.” Fortunately, Jaemin got the hint and steps were heard fading out. Not a situation the older could find relieve in, when one second later he was turned onto his back again, black eyes burning through his and down to his heart. “Don’t go flirting around with someone I don’t like, Renjun,” was the warning for the Keeper, and the several marks that decorated his neck later a threat to the prince. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


Jeno was funny in that sense, Renjun thought, as he inspected his finely bandaged hands. A man of duality, black and white, bright skin and dark wings. Except there were no longer any wings, they had been taken to wherever once again, after Renjun had torn them out, and neither of the kids had caught sight of them. Jaemin, too, had not said anything, and that the Keeper felt grateful for. He did trust the kids, but he trusted himself more, and if what the prince had said had been true, he’d rather not have more people than necessary know about them.

Albeit Jaemin was a whole intricate topic of his own. Never did he speak up or question about Renjun’s and Jeno’s relationship, but sometimes the older found himself at the receiving end of touches too gentle, too long, too intimate. Sometimes he felt eyes roam his frame, especially during those moments when he was caught off guard, when he was drinking tea in the evening and going through the mental imprint of a book any of the Keepers had previously read, when he was dressed to scarcely, no longer having expected a visit from anyone. It was not always like that, but neither was it seldom. Originally Jaemin seemed to have an affinity with cooking, or maybe just taking care of others in general, and with Renjun injured, working the kitchen was quite painful. Jeno could take over, but he, too, was wounded, and the prince had silently taken over. 

There had been a change of air around them, Jeno was still possessive, like a hunter marking his territory did he leave more bruises on Renjun’s skin, kept his hand on bare skin deliberately, like a challenge for Jaemin to take on and the Keeper was but the prize of their hunt. That also was the very core of difference. There was none of the underlying doubt or fear as he had shown with Lucas previously, no trace of insecurity and clinginess. It was a challenge. Straight on. And Renjun did not know how to feel about it.

Sometimes he thought it was childish, the many different reasons they could bicker like the way of watering plants. It had gotten them excluded from gardening duties for several days. Sometimes he thought it was charming, when they kept praising him, treated him like fragile glass, the kind that had been made before science had progressed to the point of making it near unshatterable. Sometimes he thought it was too much, when their attention got him all hot and bothered. Sometimes he thought it was wrong, the way he could not refuse Jaemin’s advances, or when he thought of the prince while kissing Jeno. 

And other times, it seemed to be all right. When the winged questioned him of whether he was thinking of something else when they spent a night hot and sweaty not only because of the weather, and his silent replies were like gasoline to the fiery tension between them, burning bright and consuming them whole. When he was perched on Jeno’s lap in the kitchen, and the conversation between the three of them went on fluidly, as if he didn’t have to peabrains vying for his attention but two well behaved pets knowing how to obey. Not two brutes, and that the both could be, but two scholars intrigued by the discourse of speech. To Renjun, though, both sides appealed, always had, it was what he loved about.

It must have been his own mistake to have underestimated the many conclusions the kids could jump to within what barely had been two weeks though. Evidence brought to him one afternoon, just after Jeno had changed his bandages for him, as he took a rest at the rooftop. Jisung’s steps weren’t as featherweight as usual, and this time Renjun made the effort to sit up to catch sight of who was approaching rather than guessing. He had not expected to be met with such a solemn expression. 

Silently he opened up his arms as an invitation, had Jisung sit down next to him and lean his taller frame again his own lighter one. Gently the Keeper carded his fingers through their youngest member’s hair in an attempt of soothing him, quietly coaxing the words out of the kid. “Is Jeno alright?”

A hint of surprise tainted Renjun’s features as he looked down at the other but in retrospect, it was no surprise they thought like that. Jaemin arrived and Jeno closed himself off, the prince was not used to these surroundings and the kid not to the Blue Blood and yet, Renjun’s focus had mostly been on his lover. Not without justification, but he had left the kids hanging. Then some nights ago, it was impossible for Jeno’s scream not to have echoed throughout the city and especially the neighboring houses, and suddenly Renjun, too, was covered in bandages. 

Guilt overcame him in an instant, softly he lured Jisung to lay down and rest in his lap, fingers still combing through the strands he knew he liked to feel up but currently, with gauze wrapped around his injured skin, it lacked some of the intimacy. “When Jaemin arrived, he just didn’t pay attention with the cold weather.” Not exactly a lie but definitely far from the truth. It was the most Renjun could do to twist reality. “He took a break the last days but he surely didn’t want to worry you.”

Like a feline, the younger wormed around for a second, until he was settled on his back and their gazes could meet more easily. “Then your hands…?”

“Those?” The older held them up, inspected the white on his skin, tried to find a fitting excuse that did not sound too much like a lie but neither like evading the question. In the end, he just laughed it off. “I’ve been a bit reckless. But it will heal soon, don’t break your pretty little head about it.”

“So it’s got nothing to do with Jaemin and Jeno and this weird thing they got going on?” Jisung tried again, and really, he was more perceptive than was good for him. Foregoing the reply entirely, Renjun just used his numbed digits to tickle the younger until they were a messy heap on top of the blankets, both of them breathing for air heavily. 

Days like these, they sure made it all worth it, the mere fact that he was able to make friends in a situation that had seemed so very hopeless in the beginning. Life, he slowly got to learned, maybe was not only about books and what was written in them after all. His expression softened as he turned to Jisung once again, carefully placed his bandaged hand over one glistening in the sun. “I promise you, I won’t keep anything from you if it means it might endanger any of us. But the things playing out between these two, that’s their story to sort first. Alright?”

“Alright,” the Doppelgänger agreed, holding out his pinky in a childish gesture that Renjun still obliged to. In the late afternoon light, it made quite the sight, the naturally shimmer of Jisung’s skin, the silver that was partly still seeping through the bandages from wounds too deep and scars opened again. Despite the pain it held, the promise it kept within made it a beautiful moment to the Keeper, one he actually wanted to keep for the remains of his life. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


Renjun did not want to be surprised any longer but in a way he still was. Not so much by the fact they had received yet another arrival, but rather the way in which it happened. It was too different from his crashed ship, Jeno’s fall, and the others’ arrival in capsules. Instead, there actually was a small ship landing in quite the distance from the city, too far to be able to make out the details but too close to remain oblivious of it. Even he had caught it merely by accident, had only just gotten out of bed and stretched his limbs when he caught sight of the little spot of white flying around in front of the smudged colors of the sky.

“Jeno,” he called out, trying to keep his attention on where the ship had landed and taken off again, while at the same time calling for his lover to wake up. The younger only grunted and turned around in bed, making Renjun huff in distaste. “Useless sleaze…” With his lips formed somewhere between a curl of distaste and a sulky pout, he made to get dressed properly and head down. 

Jaemin was just about to step into the house, a tad too used to using their kitchen to prepare a meal for them all, when Renjun caught his wrist and dragged him out again. He did not explain, and Jaemin did not ask, they just made their way through the city quietly as the Keeper lead the way. Unlike the first time they had ventured like this, he was not interested in taking detours to confuse the Blue Blood, the younger belonged to them now and that’s how it was supposed to be, no need to take the long way around. On the contrary, Renjun wished Jaemin and Jeno would stop with the detours, too, stop sending him confusing signals, stop sending each other misleading messages.

Now, though, was not the time to consider that, not with the prospect of possibly a new arrival. Maybe he should have considered it was not a friendly kind, he had been more careful with Jisung and Jaemin too, had been more attentive than now as he just rushed through the streets. Only when they hit the outskirts of down, the houses giving way to the desert instead of streets, did the Blue Blood catch on. A figure was moving in the distance, could be anything, and the prince must have realized for he just grabbed Renjun by the waist and pulled him into an abandoned house.

Chest to chest, the older’s back to the wall, they were closer than any before, and Renjun’s heart was beating fast enough to hear not only because of their proximity. “Are you stupid?” Jaemin hissed into his ear, and what usually might have been teasing was now reprimanding. “You’re just walking around and towards someone you don’t know without any means of defense? Did you not think this through?”

The Keeper, with wide eyes, only blinked at the younger, his brain telling him to be alarmed but his body too distracted by the warmth of another being. And it wasn’t even Jeno. His skin paled and flushed all at once, so he simply lowered his head in shame and rested it against the younger’s shoulder. “I just-” Just what? He didn’t have an answer but the Blue Blood must have caught on, played with the short silvery hair at his nape, twisted lightly in their hold so he could peek out of the window near to their standing. 

Time passed like that, two thousand and twenty-four seconds, to be exact, when the movement of sand became a bit too artificial and even then, another four hundred seconds later passed. Jaemin was more used to this, had grown up where it was not always perfectly peaceful, so Renjun had no trouble giving up reign for the moment, until it was deemed safe again. “Stay,” the younger still demanded, vanished out of the door, left the Keeper behind breathing heavily. It was silent, no sound of wind rustling through the streets, but a call for his name, not panicked, not stressed, merely his name.

With quick steps the older went out, only to find Jaemin standing next to a collapsed body, tan fingers holding on to a bag that held the symbol of the guards. “I’ve already checked but there’s nothing but clothes and food in that bag,” the prince explained, careless, as if it didn’t matter what could’ve been inside that might have possibly been dangerous. This time it was Renjun’s turn to curse the younger out, forcefully pushing him away as he glared for another moment at the awfully soft pink hair.

But Jaemin just smiled it off, always too lenient, it was not fair. The problem of the boy between them remained, and Renjun knew it was his decision to make, always had been. Jisung and Chenle obeyed him for age, he had been here longer than them, knew everything better, but Jeno and Jaemin, who could easily challenge and overthrow them, especially with the nEOS knowing nearly as much about maintaining the city by now, behaved for some other reason. In the beginning, he had always thought it was because Jeno heeded to his intellect, to the amount of knowledge sometimes seeming to burst from the seams of his mind. Whether Jaemin was yet aware of his origin was another question.

“Let’s pull a Jisung on him,” the Keeper sighed as he crouched down to grab one of the boy’s limp arms. “Get him into one of the houses, hang some bells on the door, and when he is well again, we can still talk to him and question his intentions.”

“Your call,” the Blue Blood agreed, not pulling any of his cheesy lines for the moment, because this was more serious than the matter of what to eat for breakfast anyways. Silently, the younger crouched down, grabbed the boy’s other arm, and by wrapping each around their shoulders, they at least were able to drag the unconscious to where they had come from.

  


Jeno’s gaze when seeing them come in together, after they had ditched not only making breakfast but also spent the appropriate time for it, had been… curious. It drove the flush high on Renjun’s cheeks because there was no rage, no jealousy, nothing bad, just an honest interest. Did not mean he didn’t claim his stake regardless, and the older immediately relaxed into the warming embrace. Jeno did not ask questions.

“Found a new kid,” Renjun muttered into the younger’s chest, what often times would be bare skin was now clothed, partly to cover up the bandages wrapped tight around his frame. The fingers skimming the back of his nape were soothing, the way the wingless one played with the short hair there. “Came with the guards so we put him in a house, with the bells and all. Do you think they have become suspicious of us?”

The guards, in themselves, were not a bad thing. Originating from a unity of several planets’ defensive powers, they had evolved into an entity of their own, a strong power, something to be treated carefully. Mostly, they looked out for the humanoid races, most of them were humans anyways. The original, not the evolutionary forms like any of them were. Jaemin, within their group, was the closest to their origin anyways, with the exception of his dyed blood. 

The guards took on intergalactic matters, most of all. If a planet wanted to build and export weapons? Peachy. If they had their own defensive systems and ground troops? Still peachy. But if they did not want to deal with the hassle of waging war against other planets or peace treaties or whatever there was, they relied on the guards. It was not about establishing superiority, rather it was willingly giving up their freedom in certain areas to maintain good standing. No one was forced into anything, but there were ground rules. Like the quarantine.

Abandoned planets, like the Q-P2, extinct of life forms, were used for that. Belonging to a solar system in cooperation with the guards, they had asked for permission to use it for those who could no longer be cured. Because illnesses that spread and evolved could eradicate whole planets. Exactly the way it had been done with Renjun’s. Before any of that happened, before viruses learned and morphed, the planets were either put on lockdown or the inhabitants were sent into quarantine. To die, went without saying. 

Definitely there must be people opposing procedures like the quarantine. Renjun knew better. When weighing it off, sacrificing a few to salvage many was wise, a smart and well planned move. It was not like they couldn’t survive either, their little city was a prime example. He had spent nearly fifteen years, five thousand and two hundred seventy-eight days to be exact, on this planet, and had not yet died. Jeno had stayed approximately half that time with him. It was not impossible. But neither was it what they anticipated would have happened. 

“I doubt it,” Jaemin answered, dropped some vegetables in their breakfast soup, then turned to lean onto the counter with his lower arms. That way, they could easily watch each other. “They make sure no previous technology remains when sending people here since they don’t want people to just leave. And they keep check of ships in the proximity to make sure no one aids in escape either.” Lest they’d turn into criminals and would be filed as such. An immediate order to captivate them. “What exactly we do on here, as long as we stay, is not their problem.”

There was no other way than to believe Jaemin. Either way, he had been in closest contact with the guards probably, able to ask all these questions that would remain riddles otherwise. “So why did they send him here?” Renjun wondered, little frown on his face that was not even fought off by Jeno’s tender touches.

“Same reason as all of you,” the prince contemplated, lightly tilting his head aside. “He’s incurable sick or something. I’m not sure he was spouting a fever out there or just warmed up from the sun but he didn’t really look all that healthy either way. But I’m no medic.”

The Keeper sighed, no other option than to wait it out then, and he hated doing that. He wanted answers, not have to pass time. Gently he tapped his hands against Jeno’s around his waist, asked to get free so he could get up and leave with the words, “I’ll get the kids.” They would have to talk to them anyways, discuss the likelihood of someone else staying, and the more they were the merrier breakfast would be. These two made it happy. He had not been unhappy with Jeno before, not in the least, but as he looked at the colorfully painted houses, their names scribbled in foreign letters, he couldn’t help wonder whether maybe they had missed out on a lot. Jeno and him had always been too serious, not enjoying their life like Jisung and Chenle. On the other hand, after what these two had gone through, it was no surprise they wanted to make the best of everything now.

Shortly later, they were already running down the street, heading for the bigger house that was the couple’s, clearly as starved as one could be after breakfast being delayed once. They did not question the bells on yet the door, the only one decorated with the chimes, despite Chenle’s faltering steps giving it away with ease. It was their way of showing consideration, faith, if one so will, based on the promise Renjun had already given. They only talked about food as they all settled down. 

“I never thought I’d be this happy about having Jaemin around but-” Chenle let out some appreciative sound, did a gesture that might have meant “good!” on his planet, and went back to eat.

Jisung, though, looked a bit more taken by the words, quick to gaze at Renjun and add, “Not that your cooking was bad! Really not! But-”

“But Jaemin cooks better anyways,” Chenle huffed, softly elbowing the younger in the side. The comment was not even enough to trigger a discussion, not to mention a fight. Objectively seen, Renjun was even aware that they were right. Jaemin’s food tasted better than his own. 

“We might have someone else around again,” the Keeper muttered instead, picking out some root from his soup to thoughtfully nibble on. There were still countless possibilities running through his mind, as to why that kid carried the guards symbol. Jaemin had not found weapons, it eradicated many, but either way, the boy was affiliated with the confederation. There was an implication someone had been stupid - or ballsy - enough to attack either some members or even a whole station directly. Whoever it was, they must have been bonkers.

Chenle frowned lightly, Jisung looked more buffled. The Doppelgänger spoke up first, gestured towards Jeno and Renjun sat at one side of the table, “Isn’t it weird that you,” then at himself, and his best friend and Jaemin along, “Now all of us?” The implication was there. It was off, Renjun had been alone for so long, it had been only him and Jeno for a long time too, and suddenly there were four people arriving within such a short time. 

“I don’t know,” he answered, honestly, even when lying was one of the hardest tasks for him. It did not remove the worry from the two’s faces. “I’ll ask Lucas the next time he’s around. Until then, let’s wait for the boy to wake up and then we’ll know more.” 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


At night, he was set in front of his bedroom window, back leaning against the warmed up glass as he watched Jeno carefully peel the bandages off his arms. Lucas had previously send them some data, claimed, “Music is cool!” and Yeeun had saved it to now play for them. It were not always languages they could understand but they had a similar current, melodies aligning to make a beautiful background sound.

Bit by bit the ruddy skin of his arms was revealed, the skin still irritated around the wounds that had run a bit too deep, a mess of white lines with some faint and some thick. Jeno’s fingers were tender as they traced along some of them, the ones that had mostly healed already. Renjun knew the younger detested them, the forceful marks on his skin, but he thought it was little of a price to pay when compared to the agony having one’s wings removed must be. “Jaemin said something to me recently,” the Keeper softly muttered, meeting alluringly dark eyes staring into his, “That his people always thought nEOS would die with their wings removed… So they were killed quickly.”

Some days it was hard to read the emotions in Jeno’s eyes, black holes that sucked everything in, and when the mood was solemn like now it was a bit harder. “Never heard about them growing back either,” he muttered, under his breath. Neither broke the question of whether it was because no one had wanted to test it before. There was only the music and the sound of bandages slowly falling to the ground.

At this point, Renjun was certain none of the scars on his hands and lower arms had not at least one crossing it, jutting out wherever the skin moved more, maring his knuckles and fingers especially. Yet Jeno pulled up each hand after it was finished undressing and pressed tender kisses to his knuckles, silently appreciating his ruined skin in a way similar to how he had so often worshipped the whole of Renjun’s body. It was tenderness in its purest form, had his insides fill with warmth and turn into mush.

“Jeno-” He started silently, but was already interrupted by Yeeun’s voice. With a grunt he dropped his head back and into the glass. Recently it was really too difficult to enjoy a moment of peace and quiet with his lover.

“Lucas is calling,” her tinny voice spoke over the music, remained silent for a second, then she asked, “Did I interrupt anything?”

Jeno smiled good-naturedly, let go of Renjun’s messed up hands. “No, Yeeun. Just connect.” His eyes had become more expressive again, tender in their wake, and it made Renjun forget about his upset as he watched the younger signal he would be right back. 

“Little bro!” Lucas shouted through their line, and the Keeper had slowly started to imagine a happy pet when thinking of his distant cousin, wagging its tail, all thanks to the sheer excitement spread by Xuxi’s attendance. “I have good news for you!”

Lightly, the boy perked up, feeling his spine straighten at the words alone, and he looked at the AI as if Yeeun would be able to tell whatever was running through the half-blood’s mind. They had gotten better at reading each other without seeing, so the older did not hesitate in going on, “We might have found a method to get you out of here. And, look, we checked it, but the guards only say no one is allowed to help you escape quarantine. They never stated you’re not allowed to leave yourself with the right equipment and we’ve collected a lot recently. Look, we’re still working on it but…”

Lucas was still going on, and one part of Renjun’s brain was still recognizing it all, the tales of a plan his cousin had made without his knowing. The greater part, though, went off to imagine what his home must look like by now. The Link was wonderful, but no surveillance system. Without eyes to see, he could not know what was going on, how it had turned out to be, whether the fires of his planet were still burning bright, greedy for books of forbidden knowledge to be swallowed up or, in the recent cases, the corpses they had been fed. He could go there with Jeno, too, maybe even Jaemin would join, and he could show them all the wisdom he had stuffed into his brain live, could impress his lover with the sheer amount of things they could learn. 

But hope was a precarious thing. He squished it and smashed it before it could grow into something that would only swallow him up. “Lucas,” he interrupted, quiet but decisive, a wry smile on his lips, “Please don’t let me wish for something you can’t yet fulfill.”

It was silent for a moment, the answer clearly not what the unseen boy had yearned for. A sigh was the treaty to their standings. “Tell me what has changed instead.”

“Got a new arrival,” Renjun was quick to reply, glad he finally had something new to talk about rather than the one time Chenle had bet Jeno to go to the bathroom with him so they could check, well, things. Lucas released an interested sound and that was all the prompt the Keeper needed to go on, “He’s not awake yet but he seems to come from the guards and-”

“Oh!” Lucas drawled in recognition, quickly clapping his hands in succession. Some noises filled the space between their voices, and the older returned, “I heard about that. Someone attacked one of their bases recently but no one knew how. Most of the occupants did not survive but, listen, it was not even for active soldiers. Man, mostly family lived there, you know, the ones that are offered a place to live when the kids achieve a certain rank and all.”

Renjun took a moment to take in the news, stomaching just what he was told until it made sense but Lucas still went on, “Actually, that was not the first time it happened. I think it was about the time y’all were hit with Viper but another base had previously been infected. ‘m too young to remember whether there were survivors but it sounds like one huge coincidence, doesn’t it?”

If someone excluded the fact that Lucas thrived on gossip and rumors that was fed to him, it would indeed be. But Renjun would rather ask the unconscious boy about that. His mind was still swimming with the information seconds later, when the door opened and Jeno stepped in with Jaemin behind him, looking sheepish and shrugging it off. 

The youngest was less interested in being unobtrusive than the wingless, letting out an appreciative noise. “Is that your cousin? Like, the mysterious kid everyone talks about but no one knows?”

Like a switch flicked, and much to Renjun’s surprise whose eyes widened in return, Lucas called back, “That’s a new one! There’s a new one! Hey, little one, who of them is it? Definitely not Jeno, I’ve heard his voice in one too many situations but-”

“Yeeun, end,” Renjun cut in, a bit hasty before Xuxi said something embarrassing affecting mostly the Keeper. Jaemin looked startled, Jeno just shrugged it off. Silently the dark haired approached Renjun, unscrewing a little jar with a soothing balm to rub into the injured skin. 

“Oh my, I just thought it would become interesting,” the prince added, and while the two lovers were focused on Renjun’s hands, settled on the bed. Carefully he bounced on the mattress, testing and trying, then decided, “You have the best bed of them all. Can’t we change?”

Before the Keeper realized, he had looked over and offered, “Just stay with us then.” It took a moment before his own words hit him, made him blush with embarrassment as he looked down at Jeno’s pale fingers massaging the balm into his skin instead. Silently he mouthed an apology, yet there was nothing but amusement in his eyes.

Jaemin sounded contemplative, still perched on their bed. “Aren’t you two sleeping naked usually? I don’t really mind, just want to check whether that’s a dresscode we’re all comfortable with and-”

Renjun threw the used bandages at the younger, no longer wanting to hear any questions regarding their upcoming situation. It was already too late to go back on his offer anyways. 

  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


The mug in Renjun’s hand was still hot, the food still steaming, as he simply watched the boy in front of him. After he had entered the room, a pillow had flown his direction. Luckily only that. He had silently made his way to the table, dodged another pillow, and set down. Like that, they had spent their latest minutes, just staring at each other in an attempt to assess each other but it was obvious Renjun was in a better situation at the moment. The boy was sweaty, Jaemin’s words of a fever ringing true, it was too much even despite the heat season, honeyed skin turned ruddy in the way his scarred hands were. They remained.

Previously, he had told Jeno and Jaemin to stay put, not knowing what to do with the prince but certain of his lover’s excessive protectiveness. He didn’t need a repeat of the last time, neither to add scars to the one they already had. Though, thinking of scars, Jeno couldn’t even use his wings just yet. Only the fear remained.

Renjun was not sure whether or not the silence between them weighed heavier by the passing moment or lighter, but the only interruption came by the boy’s grumbling stomach. Too much time must have passed between his last meal and now, albeit Jaemin had tried to make amends in that direction. They had sacrificed one too many plates on the newcomer though, so the Keeper had decided to deliver it himself rather than just leaving some behind while unconscious, usually resulting in having the meal thrown out onto the street. He had seen one too many of Jaemin’s sad expressions.

Carefully he sorted through the library stuck in his mind until he found the language he needed. The guard had not been something he had to deal with before, the words stiff on his tongue thanks to only having heard them before, as he pointed out, “If you’re hungry, you should eat. If we wanted to hurt you, we’d have had enough opportunity to.”

That the boy seemed to consider for a moment, contemplation in his honey orbs evident even to Renjun. Some more time passed, the boy got up, eating for the first time since having come here. The Keeper did not yet point it out, only nipped his tea silently, and even the hot drink tasted better ever since Jaemin had taken to prepare it for him. It made him curl his nose in distaste. “I’m telling you now while you’re without ammunition,” he muttered into the steam of his cup, felt the warmth from within slowly accommodate him to the heat of the air, “It is your decision if you want to stay or not. We’re not many but we made our home here, so if you stay, then remain peaceful. No more throwing plates, no more throwing pillows. I won’t even ask you to help us since you look too exhausted to do that. Nevertheless we’re your best chance of survival unless you want to venture further into the desert which I don’t recommend.” 

“You know my language…” The boy’s voice was hoarse, either form lack of usage since days or illness. Renjun could still remember how much his own throat had hurt the first time he had talked to Jeno, his tongue having gotten lazy over the years it had been hard to say a lot of the words he knew in theory, not to mention last whole conversations.

“Only by books,” the Keeper replied, carefully eyeing the boy who seemed to be taken by the vegetables. He could understand, he had known little of them before too but they tasted great. Unfamiliar, but great.

“How many of you are there?” The boy kept on, expression between caution and interest. The lack of aggression was all that mattered to Renjun.

“Four besides me.” He pointed at the empty plate and asked, “You want more?” When the boy nodded, he reached for it and got up, only to return with another serving just moments later to place on the table again. “I’m Renjun. Jaemin is the one you might interact with a lot, he’s the one who brought you food the last days.”

“Blue Blood,” the boy repeated, only waited for a confirming nod, before digging into his food. “Donghyuck.”

Without another word, Renjun settled at the table again, hiding his smile by picking up his mug and taking another sip of tea instead. Today he would not pry about answers to questions he had not asked. He was content with their current start.  


  


*:;,．★ ⌒ ☆・:.,;*

  


They didn’t find out Donghyuck’s story until some weeks later, as they had all settled on the blanketed rooftop and were busy watching the stars. At least Renjun was. Resting with his head on the pillow that was Jeno’s arm, he was silently pointing out the stars he thought he had already recognized to Jaemin. They were different in that way, the Keeper found. Jeno liked the tranquility of it, of resting and being close, of hearing Renjun’s voice, of their surrounding mood. Jaemin was someone to show interest, curious about how other people worked, how Jeno and Renjun worked, what they thought and what drove them to acts. Jeno was someone born flying, to enjoy the freedom of the skies. Jaemin was someone born to rule, someone who had to know people to recognize not only the good in everyone. It was this difference Renjun enjoyed, Jeno’s gentle care and Jaemin’s tender observations. It made all of this comfortable.

“How can you just do it?” Donghyuck suddenly asked, already having sat up unlike the rest of them who were still comfortable on their backs. “How can you just settle like this and forget what had happened before? You-” A trembling finger was directed at Jaemin, the hurt evident behind the weak wrath. “Your whole monarchy was overthrown and yet you… You…”

“He went on?” Jeno tried, careful of not disturbing Renjun too much as he put his weight on his lower arms, raised just enough to be able to look at Donghyuck. The Keeper did not protest, merely adjusted his position to his lover’s stomach, curious as to how this would play out. Jeno was never one to pick fights but neither to just deal with someone undeserving getting accused in front of him. “He can’t undo it. His father was cruel, a slaughterer of races and blind to his own kingdom’s faults. In a situation of a revolt having overthrown his home, should he really be mad? Upset? He’s the only survivor, he can only be happy he survived.”

Glancing at Jaemin, Renjun could see the thoughts running through his pretty head, not certain just what kind they were. The prince had always been open with the mistakes of his father, had addressed them whenever the Keeper had asked, but saying it oneself and having to hear it from others was different. Yet Jeno was the only one who was allowed to judge, having been at the receiving end of that cruelty. It was a topic that would never be a sensitive one between them.

“Jisung and Chenle are finally freed from captive, should they mourn that they’re not longer locked away?” Whilst to others it might still sound passive, Renjun was aware how tense Jeno’s speech had already become, could feel the deep breaths right beneath his head. His fingers danced along the clothed muscles, trying to calm his lover down. In front of him, Dongyhuck looked guilty, having hung his head in shame.

Gently, Renjun called for his name, once more, and again, until the honey orbs were directed at him, stuck between accusation and despair. “You can’t undo what happened, Jeno is right. We can’t revive the dead, and even if we could, it would likely not be the person we had previously known. But you are alive, you are still here. So are you supposed to live your life being upset for having survived or to go on and live for those who no longer can?”

Their eyes remained locked for another few seconds, before rough coughing interrupted them. The boy seized up, tension from the pressure on his lungs making him hunch forward, enough for all of them to startle but already too used to it. Jaemin looked ready to just bring the Donghyuck back home, but the human just waved it off, passed another wave of coughs. Eventually, it settled with some heavy breaths and he fell back into the blankets, looking up at the stars in wonder. Renjun kept watching, as did the others. “They said the water had been infected so without knowing, we had been poisoned for days if not weeks. It hit the elders first, but no one could find a cure and the only thing… the last hope we had… They didn’t want to give Nano Injections. Just left us to rot because no one had the money for it. Afterwards they said it was too short notice but I’m certain that the company just didn’t want to lose profit because of people like us…”

Silently Renjun looked up, checked for Jeno’s reaction for a second before he went over and lied down next to Donghyuck, rather than being suffocated by his lover’s warmth. He followed the line of sight upwards, looked at the stars, but his hand reached for the boy’s to squeeze softly. “I think all of you can sing tales of the cruelty of others… But if you look up there, do you think each of these places is occupied only by mean people? Sometimes minds are cruel and nasty, sometimes coincidence makes it tough. It doesn’t mean we should live only to spite others, especially when they are far away. You have us now, you shouldn’t worry about those who are never going to care.”

No one said anything in return, they all seemed to wait for Donghyuck’s reaction first, one that came quite as silently, only notable to Renjun. The squeeze he had given earlier was returned, and looking over, he could see quite some tension had bled out of the younger’s face. It would not be easy, to just leave all of that behind, the memory of having seen people die by the hands of others or some virus. It was just something they had to do, before they would forever be haunted by their own nightmares. 

It didn’t take long for the human to fall asleep, their hands still held, and Renjun sit up. On the other side, he could see Jeno and Jaemin having already sat up, their warm eyes watching over them. There were still nightmares haunting him, too, but looking at these two, he thought shouldering them was worth it all regardless.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello the second time! (.❛ ᴗ ❛.)
> 
> I'm still trying to encourage y'all to follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/starrymeis) or send me questions on [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/starrymeis). Since there's surely a bunch of ideas to work on with this verse, I'd really love if you test me some, too. I can also try answering in short drabble format (╯✧▽✧)╯ 
> 
> I hope those of you who managed until here did enjoy it and feel free to leave comments, I don't bite, only excessively use kaomoji (°◡°♡)
> 
>  **trivia**  
>  ☆ Renjun had been 4 when people on his planet had first fallen sick. Aged 5 he was brought into quarantine. When he was 13, Jeno arrived. 14 marked when he first tore off the wings. When they were about 17, Chenle and Jisung arrived. As he was 18, Jaemin and Donghyuck arrived.  
> ☆ They are all humanoid races but only Donghyuck is originally human.  
> ☆ I had watched Maleficent 2 on Monday and said ever since that Jeno + Wings = Ultimate Combo (ಥ﹏ಥ) eventually, Gems and me spent a good afternoon discussing which plot idea would fit best with Jeno in this setting in consideration of his wings (we ended up combining 2 or 3 ideas)  
> ☆ NCT Dream Concert [Renjun and Jeno](https://twitter.com/JaeJe_DJ/status/1196756967928123393?s=19) visuals basically sum up this whole au  
> ☆ Writing this, I actually realized how much my writing style has changed, especially applied to this one. I've used to write sentences long enough to confuse even me but I recently tried to make them shorter. For this I went quite unique, though.  
> ☆ because it's a desolate planet, there's no other life forms like animals and stock. Renjun raised vegetables and fruits but fear not, there are some so high on protein you can use them like egg whites and most are rich in fiber and vitamins! ( ᵔ▽ᵔ)b  
> ☆ Yes, I made Yeeun an AI. Sue me!  
> ☆ I previously described Doppelgänger as looking like permanently creamed with glittery body lotion, like the bronzing liquid Inglot sells amplified, when discussing another character with Gems (hint: Jisung and him have something in common!)  
> ☆ I intentionally did not put too much of an emphasis on Renjun's relationships with anyone but Jeno because this is supposed to show his development and thoughts rather than his love story  
> ☆ Lucas, Xiaojun, and the rest of WayV belong to a space crew but that is another tale to tell!  
> ☆ nEOS is a wordplay on neo(s? there's a reason I did not continue my ancient Greek classes...) and Eos, the titaness of dawn, who was portrayed as winged woman  
> ☆ Doppelgänger must be self-explanatory but it really is weird for me to have to use a German word in English intentionally....


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